Act of Vengeance
by Aussie
Summary: Details the events mainly occurring from Earth's Point of View if the Cylons attacked us in the Year 2063, 56 years after we discover a large 'Galleon' underneath the ice of Antarctica. The Galactica is nearing Earth 2yrs after,Pegasus,
1. Chapter 1

Act of Vengeance

**Background**

**Antarctic Peninsula – Antarctica – Earth - 2006**

The rugged clothing didn't do much to keep out the cold. All it did was to keep the frostbite out and at bay, especially in conditions such as this. Visibility was down to thirty metres and the wind speed was reaching eighty kilometres an hour. Dr. David Miller was one of eighteen members of the first completely international expedition to Antarctica. The international team was composed of two members from nine different countries which were Australia/New Zealand, the United States of America, Canada, The United Kingdom, China, Japan, France, Germany and Switzerland. Their goal was to use the latest in sensor equipment to trace out the outline of the Antarctic continent, as well as a very brief exploratory mission for oils and natural gases which may be located underneath the ice. They had left the Haggland a while back and proceeded on foot to their next location of just over a kilometre away. There, they needed to set up and take their next sensor reading. The Haggland was dual-cab, medium class, over snow vehicle developed by Sweden. They were very useful throughout most bases situated in Antarctica, and were heavily used by the Australian Government which had territorial claims to more than one third of the continent. They were in the Australian Territory and had set out from Davis Station once being airlifted there from Casey Station.

They had arrived at their site and began to set up the sensor. They had to set up the central sensor unit, and then set up four sub-units which came out of it at right angles and had to be situated twenty metres away from the main unit. A pulse of energy would be sent out into the ice, and all five units would receive the pulse back, and interpret the data once it was hooked into their computer back at the Station. A number of pulses of different settings needed to be undertaken at every site, testing for different minerals and compositions of materials throughout the ice and underneath it.

The work was slow, and seven hours later, they were back at Davis Station. Dr. Miller approached the terminal that Dr. Galina, a Russian scientist which was with the team and interpreting the data. Apparently, she had found something underneath the ice and had called for everyone to come quickly. The crowd was already gathered around the terminal before Dr. Miller could get there.

"Here you can see where the ice ends and the surface of the land begins. It is simple metamorphic rock. The interesting thing is that approximately thirty metres underneath the rock is this shape," she pointed out to the monitor. "It is clearly rectangular and non-natural. From sensor wave three, we have determined that it is some kind of metal alloy, with traces of titanium and an unidentified mineral through it. We won't know what the mineral is until we get more detailed scans using SenSTAT3 on finer settings. It is clear that this object is a non-natural formation. It's only located ten metres below the boundary of the land mass and ice. I think we need to look into this more," she explained.

"We can't unless we get approval from our respective governments," Dr. Johnson, the American member of the international team commented.

"I think that we should get approval," Professor Fraser, the UK representative on the team stated. There were nods all around, as one by one, each member went to the phone or their own computer to contact their superiors and tell them about the discovery.

**Antarctic Peninsula – Antarctica – Earth - 2007 **

Dr. Miller got out of the makeshift lift and approached the team which was awaiting for him. Ever since the discovery under the ice a year ago, all of the scientists who made up the original team were promoted to leaders of the international effort to excavate the ice, and then the substrate surrounding the metal object that they had found under the ice. The story that was given out to the public was that the largest oil reserves that the world had ever seen had been found and that it was going to be an international reserve, to help promote world cooperation. In reality, it was something different altogether. Dr. Miller looked upwards, looking out of the giant hole which had been dug through the ice. He was standing on the surface of the Antarctic continent itself, not the ice that covered it. He looked down into the crater that had been excavated, and in the middle of it was a very large metal object, which looked to be mechanical in nature. Most of the people working on the project agreed that it seemed to be some kind of extra-terrestrial ship of some kind.

"Dr. Miller. The tunnels to site 2 and 3 were completed earlier today," a member of his team said to him. "We've found smaller objects; they seem to be of a different nature than ET1. One of the sites has what appears to be smaller personal items littered around the larger object."

**_Osprey _class shuttle – Outer Sol. System – 2063**

Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson was the pilot of the newly developed _Osprey_ class shuttle developed by the Planetary Defence Organisation, a coalition of the nine nations which had discovered the alien carrier underneath the ice of Antarctica. Apart from high level officials in the governments of all of the member nations, the people employed in the program, people employed in the manufacturing of the program, and key members of the UN, no one else on Earth knew about what had been developed from the technology found aboard the ship. Translations had been completed ten years ago on the hand written documents, almost perfectly preserved within the ship as there was no air present inside. What Samuel Johnson knew of the translations stated that a great race had set out from their dying homeworld years ago. The scientific dating around the ship had indicated that the substrate that it was located in was hundreds of thousands of years old, however additional scientific testing of the ice that had been excavated had shown that an impact had occurred which had affected the ice no more than four hundred years ago. Theories had sprung up that perhaps the ship wasn't that old, and that it had come to earth at least four hundred years ago. Others believed that the ice may have crushed something on the ship and that had set off an explosion which disrupted the ice. The translations had also warned of a great war upon the race's homeworld, causing the tribes to separate and go different directions. It had warned that future generations of the other tribes may someday try to come to Earth, and they may have hostile intentions. Ever since that was discovered, Australia and New Zealand, the United States of America, Canada, The United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland had been working on backwards engineering the technology that had been found within the ship. They had managed to manufacture better engines for non-atmospheric travel. The scientists had just figured out the systems on the ship which they said must have created artificial gravity. By studying the power-plant of the ship, Nuclear Fusion (Warm and Cold) had recently been cracked, which made powering of the ships that had been developed feasible.

Three kinds of fighter craft had been developed, the F/S 601 - _Falcon, _F/S 602 - _Tiger, _and F/SB 603 – _Albatross_. The F/S 601 – _Falcon_ was a long and elongated fighter, with two wings coming out either side. Two large engines were attached to the underside of each wing and the hull of the ship, with a panel of smaller engines on the rear of the hull, which if ignited together could boost the speed of the _Falcon_ fighter. Primitive rail guns had been developed by the United States Army, and two were located attached to the upper side of the wing and located next to the hull. Twin tails were located on the top of the ship, and electronic counter measures were launched from a small chamber located between the V shape of the wings. The cockpit almost sat on top of the engines and rail guns towards the rear of the ship, and had enough room for one person. It was 9.5m in Length and it had a 4.5m wingspan. The F/S 602 – _Tiger_ was a completely different design. It was similar to a Stealth Bomber. Twin engines were mounted on the underside of the fighter on the main hull, and one larger engine was mounted on the top. A missile bay was located in the centre of the fighter, and two rail guns were located on the top of each wing, and two more on the bottom, making the rate of fire of the _Tiger_ enormous. The two person cockpit was located towards the front of the craft, with a sensor package located in the nose. It was 7m in Length and had an 11m Wingspan. The F/SB 603 – _Albatross_ was really more of a bomber than a fighter. The shape of the main hull of the fighter was similar to a long cylinder with a rounded cone at the front for the nose. Four large engines were located attached to the hull on the top and bottom of the wings which extended from the fighter. Two missile bays were located in the fighter, one fore and one aft, each capable of launching fifteen standard non-atmospheric missiles. Twin rail-guns were located on the top-front of each wing, near the hull. The cockpit was roughly in the middle of the craft, and it took two people to fly the craft. It was 13m in length and it had a 10m wingspan.

Perhaps Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson's favourite, because of bias, was the C-602 _Osprey_ class shuttle that had been developed. It was the ship that he had trained in, and what he was flying now. Originally, it had been developed to serve as a small transport and construction/repair craft for ships, but it's success and versatility had shown that it was a good reconnaissance ship, as well as sensor/radar platform and support ship. They were a rectangular shape, with a loading/unloading ramp at the rear, much like cargo planes of Earth. Two very large rotational jets were located on the ends of two very small and thick wings. The jet engines could rotate three hundred and sixty degrees in a plane parallel to the length of the _Osprey_. Six VTOL jets were located along the length of the _Osprey_, which were used for stability in take off, landings and when hovering in an atmosphere. A turrented rail gun was located tucked away within the hull on the lower front of the ship. It could be locked in place for forwards fire, or it could rotate three hundred and sixty degrees laterally, and one hundred and eighty degrees vertically to the plane of the ship. The _Osprey_ was ten metres in length, had a wingspan (including engines) of 6 metres, and it was three metres in height. The _Osprey_ also contained a very powerful sensor/radar package, and an extendable arm which could be used for a variety of functions such as repair, welding, along with others. A crew of three was needed, one to pilot the vessel, one to man the navigation, sensors, and electronic countermeasures, and one to man the weapons.

The C-601 – _Baleen_ class cargo ship had been developed to move large amounts of materials. It was basically a large truncated container towards the bottom, with a cockpit and twin rotational engines mounted on the rear, dorsal side. A number of VTOL engines and compressed air jets were located down the sides of the container. Two large electromagnetic plates were situated on the sides of the container, which allowed the recovery of ships such as fighters and _Osprey_ class shuttles possible when something went wrong with them. One turrented rail-gun was located on the front dorsal section of the ship, as well as one on the rear, ventral part of the ship, located underneath the cockpit. The container part of the ship blocked the turrent from firing forwards, so it was used for rear protection of the ship. The container contained a loading and unloading ramp on the front and back of the ship, which made it easy for things such as vehicles to load in a drive on-drive off fashion. A large cargo lift was situated in the middle of the container, making it possible to transport cargo to the upper level of the container. The _Baleen_ class cargo ships were 20m in Length, by 10 metres wide and 5m in height.

The BC-601 – _Poseidon_, until recently, had been one of the greatest achievements of mankind. It measured 250m in length, 70m width and 25metres in height. It's purpose was to support fighters, and to serve as a military cruiser and research platform. The crash of the ship in Antarctica had boosted the knowledge of shields, which at the time of discovery in 2006 had been little more than barely working prototypes of weak electromagnetic shields. Now, they were strong energy fields, capable of deflecting all types of solar radiation, and even rail gun rounds. Theoretically, they were capable of absorbing one or two nuclear impacts in space before failing. Three Nuclear Fusion reactors powered the ship, which had four very large engines located on the rear of the ship. The ship was a laterally compressed rectangle in shape, with two extensions at the rear which were effectively it's 'wings'. The ship boasted a number of rail-gun emplacements over the ship, as well as having a bay full of nuclear missiles. It was capable of holding up to ten F-601 _Falcon_, or six F-602 _Tiger_ class fighters, as well as three C-602 _Osprey_ class shuttles. One truncated rectangular docking bay was located in the centre of the ship, which was a perfect match for the shape of a C-601 _Baleen_ class ship. The ship could dock the main part of it's container within the ship, while the cockpit and engine section remained outside the main superstructure of the ship. Because of the front and rear loading/unloading ramps, cargo could be easily loaded or unloaded from the ship. The _Poseidon_ took a crew of eight hundred to operate, and it featured very, very, touchy Faster than Light Travel, which would create a wormhole to the seven-dimensional universe, where physics doesn't work the same way as it does in the three-dimensional universe. There, the ship can be accelerated to great speeds, and the wormhole opened up on the other side. Travel times to the Alpha-Centauri system were in hours, instead of years. The concepts for the technology were reverse-engineered from the crashed ship in the Antarctic. After many test drones were used, and the secrets of the technology were discovered, work began to reduce the size and power requirements needed for Hyperspace Technology. The Hyperspace Engines would easily overheat with prolonged use, and usually a stopover was required to let them cool down and not overload.

The BB-700 _Triton_, was the greatest achievement of mankind. The parts were being fabricated on Earth, and the ship was being assembled in the outer solar system, away from the solar plane so that observatories from Earth wouldn't spot it. The _Triton_ measured 600m in length, 200m in Width, and was 60m High. It had a 'swollen' front, a narrow 'neck' and an enlarged rear sections. The front section was the main military part of the ship, as well as the 'bridge' and other critical parts of the ship. The neck served mostly as bunks and quarters for the crew, while the rear section was for cargo, research, development, repair, fabrication, food and oxygen production, as well as military transport and docking bays. On the top of the rear section was a large, transparent dome, and underneath it was a fully working greenhouse. When in combat, metal sliders would deploy over the dome, and three shields would automatically come online, two on the outside of the dome, and one on the inside. The greenhouse produced much of the oxygen for the ship, as well as forty percent of the food reserves, using genetically modified food and plant products. The 'workshop' located underneath the dome was in charge of fabricating new parts and repairing existing ones, as well as the maintenance of the number of _Osprey_ class ships and various fighters located in the hangar bays in the ship. The hangar bays were located on the underside of the ship, and could deploy five fighters at a time, with an average delay between launches of groups of five, of two minutes.

It was this ship that Flight Lieutenant Johnson was approaching for the first time. He was the pilot in an _Osprey_ class shuttle, and he couldn't believe his eyes. The ship was massive and he could see rail-gun emplacements all over it, as well as many missile bays and turrented missile launchers. Two of the four BC-601 _Poseidon_ class ships surrounded the _Triton_, a stream of shuttles and _Baleen_ class cargo ships travelling between them. They were serving as platforms for further assembly of parts before putting them onto the Triton, and from what Samuel Johnson could see, it was almost complete. Flight Lieutenant Johnson originally served in the British Air Force, butt was honourly discharged, only to learn that he was being recruited to the PDO, to be an air officer there, aboard an _Osprey_ class shuttle. He was an only child, and his parents had died when he was twenty. He knew that he was chosen for his lack of attachments on Earth, although he knew of people who were in the service, but not with the same circumstances as him. Their new navigation officer, Captain Organ, had a wife and three kids, and he regularly made it back to Earth at least for a week at a time. Lt. Sharon Valerii was like him however, with no attachments towards anyone on Earth of any kind.

"This is _Triton_ control to _Osprey 041_, we have an unidentified object which has just appeared on radar, bearing 063, 302 from your current location. Can you investigate that for us, over," the voice said over the radio.

"This is _Osprey 041_ to _Triton_ control, copy that, over," the weapons officer, Flight Lieutenant Valerii replied. Lt. Johnson manoeuvred the craft to the heading and put the jet engines to maximum power. When they reached their maximum velocity, he powered them down so that they were barely operational, so that rotating the thrusters would manoeuvre the ship, but they would keep their main heading and forward velocity. Five minutes later, the contact appeared on their radar screen, and it was moving fast. Then, another, and another contact appeared. Captain Organ, the navigations officer stated that he was sending out an IFF request, but there was no signal returned. Johnson quickly saw that Lt. Valerii was already on the camera array, and was using the small telescope, mounted into the hull, to get a look at the contacts. He knew that it would just be a pair of stray meteorites, but when he looked over to Valerii, he was surprised at the view of complete shock on her face.

"What is it?" he asked her. She just looked at him and stared at him blankly for a few moments.

"Unidentified objects, flying roughly on a roughly perpendicular course to ours sir," Sharon Valerii replied.

"What do you mean unidentified objects?" Captain Organ asked her. She just hit a button and the image of what the telescopes had focused on came up on the screen mounted above the main viewport. Flight Lieutenant Johnson looked upwards and saw what Valerii meant. There were three scimitar shaped, metallic-purple coloured, and what could only be described as ships, travelling through space in front of them. Suddenly, in a flash, they disappeared out of sight.

"Did we record that?" Johnson heard himself ask, still shocked at the sight of unfamiliar space-craft and the implications.

"Yes sir, all of it," Valerii replied.

"Send it back to the _Triton_ immediately and take us to the area where the ships were located," Samuel Johnson said to her. Just before they were going to send the transmission, they got a message, and Captain Organ grabbed the printout and gave it to Johnson. It read;

_All Earth Ships report to Earth Orbit with top speed. Earth is under orbital attack from an unknown enemy. This is not a joke, or a Drill. _

_PDO – Commander and Chief._


	2. Chapter 2 Into the Fire

Here's the next chapter folks. The last part is taken directly from previous story. Not too long chapter this one, next one will be longer.

-----------------------------

**Chapter 2 – Into the Fire**

Officer Cadet Henry O'Connell couldn't believe his eyes. Right in front of him was a giant ship, shaped like two Mercedes Benz symbols one hundred and eighty degrees offset from each other, and lain down on top of each other. He and the rest of Red Squadron were in the middle of performing advanced training in their new F/S-601 _Falcon_ space superiority fighters, and had launched out of the Poseidonclass ship called the _Boreas_. The _Boreas_ and _Chu-Jung_ were the only capital ships in Earth orbit. The _Boreas_ was Australia and New Zealand's contribution to the new and up-coming space fleet which was being developed. Ever since the linguists discovered that the names of the other twelve tribes were similar to the twelve constellations of the Zodiac on Earth, twelve large military satellites with large telescopes had been put into orbit to further investigate the constellations. For the last forty years there had been a rumour going around within the community involved with the discovery of the ship that the military satellites had detected signs of activity within the various constellations of the Zodiac; that they had detected large releases of energy upon objects recognisable as planets within the constellations, which indicated large scale military activity. It was known to everyone involved that ever since that rumour had started flying around, the governments of the various countries involved had almost simultaneously began more intensive research into reverse-engineering the technology from the crashed ship, and that a large emphasis had been put on manufacturing military class space ships.

At that point in time, Henry O'Connell didn't doubt the decision of his government to start to produce warships, as he was flying towards hundreds of smaller objects which he guessed were fighters, which had launched from the large ship in front of them.

"Red Squadron, form up on me," Red Squadron Leader, a Bruce Anders said into the radio. Henry O'Connell was Red Two, and he was second in command of the wing, if something were to happen to Anders. Almost instantaneously, the rest of the wing were flying in formation with Anders. Henry saw something moving out of the corner of his eye, and turned his head to look. Five large missiles were screaming towards the large ship in front of him, from Earth. He guessed that one of the countries on the ground had launched their planetary defence missiles at the large ship. He watched as a small group of enemy fighters detached themselves from the main group and moved in and shot down the missiles with amazing accuracy and speed. Officer Cadet O'Connell was scared out of his mind. They were one wing, against what must have been over one hundred fighters, which they didn't' know anything about. It was then that he noticed something above him, and he quickly glanced a look upwards, and felt relief. He saw the profile of a F/S-602 – _Tiger_ above him, and with a couple more quick glances, he saw at least a wing coming into support them. He looked straight ahead again, and they were approaching weapons range of the enemy fighters.

That was when all hell broke loose, two wings of _Tigers_ had been descending on a perpendicular course towards the oncoming enemy fighters, and they opened up with their four rail-guns mounted on each fighter. He saw a stream of missiles going towards the fighters, and before they knew what had happened, over thirty fighters must have been destroyed. Henry put the fact in the back of his mind that they must have been using some kind of radar, similar to theirs, and that's why the _Tigers _weren't detected, as they were based on the slim profile of the stealth bomber and were made of the same materials.

Their success didn't last long though, as the enemy fighters turned and opened up with their rail guns on the _Tiger _squadrons which had attacked them. That's when the order came through the communications for Red Squadron to engage the series of smaller engines located on the back of their fighter, and to engage the enemy fighters. O'Connell instantly saw the manoeuvrability of the enemy fighters as they quickly avoided his rail gun fire. Soon enough, he was in the thick of it, and there were explosions occurring all around his fighter. He saw a lone fighter which was away from the main 'pack', and hit the throttle to maximum and surged towards it, away from the battle. Suddenly, all of his systems on the fighter shut down, and he was sent careening towards Earth, with no power, no manoeuvrability, no weapons, no radar, nothing.

Bruce Anders, the Red _Falcon_ Squadron Leader saw the manoeuvre by Red Two, Henry O'Connell and saw his ship shut down. He knew that there were at least a couple of _Baleen_ class cargo ships out there.

"Red Leader, requesting emergency pickup for Red Two. Location 0564,6631,9235. No Power, repeat, No Power," he said into radio, hoping that one of the _Baleen_ cargo ships would be able to reach O'Connell in time. He pulled his fighter around in a very steep one hundred and eighty degree turn, just in time for it to be torn apart by enemy fire.

Henry O'Connell couldn't help but feel extremely frustrated and scared as his fighter drifted towards Earth. With every passing minute, it's features were becoming closer, and there was nothing that he could do about it. There was no method for ejecting from his fighter, although that wouldn't do much anyway, as he'd then be sitting in space with a limited amount of oxygen, still drifting towards Earth. He saw additional wings of fighters coming out of Earth's atmosphere as he looked towards the horizon, but they couldn't do anything for him. Suddenly, a large flash came from the surface of the Earth, and Henry realised what it was – a nuclear weapon had been detonated. Another flash quickly followed, and then another, and then another. He looked as far backwards in his cockpit as he could and he saw that the capital ship was firing large missiles towards Earth, and he knew that they must have been the nukes. Thankfully, he saw a couple explode as fighters chased them down.

His view of the battlefield quickly turned to horror as he saw entire wings of fighters getting slaughtered, and they weren't manoeuvring out of the way or trying to defend themselves in the least. Henry O'Connell then realised what must have been happening, the enemy had a method to shut down their fighters.

It was at that time that two _Poseidon_ class vessels appeared out of Hyperspace in close proximity to the enemy capital ship. Immediately, he saw two flashes from the other side of his ship, and he began to turn his head, but then realised that they must have been nuclear explosions in space. He waited for the flash to die down, and he saw the shape of a _Poseidon_ class cruiser, with a sphere of pulsating energy surrounding the ship. He knew that that was the _Boreas_, the ship that he had been based out of. Spot fires were apparent on secluded parts of the ship, and he doubted that the ship could take another hit.

A shape passed above him, blocking out the light getting into his cockpit. He looked up and saw the shape of a _Baleen_ class cargo ship looming above him, using it's manoeuvring thrusters to come up along side his _Falcon_ and line up the electromagnetic plates. They had just completed this part of their training a week ago. What seemed to be five minutes, was only thirty seconds as the _Baleen_ cargo ship had lined it's left side electromagnet up with the bottom of Henry O'Connell's _Falcon_. Suddenly, he felt the ship being violently pulled and heard a loud clang as the bottom of his ship impacted the electromagnet on the side of the _Baleen_. He saw out of his cockpit as they immediately rotated ninety degrees vertically, and the_ Baleen_ hit full throttle. Ahead, was another _Poseidon_ class ship, obviously the _Chu-Jung_, the other capital ship that had been in orbit at the time of the attacks. He could see three other _Baleen_ cargo ships going towards it, and he surmised that it was acting as a rescue and recover platform.

**Combat Information Centre – Colonial Battlestar _Galactica_**

They had to leave the system that they were occupying, which seemed to be relatively safe fro the Cylons, a week ago. Since then, they had been doing much of the same thing that they'd been doing much of the same thing that they'd been doing for the past two years, jumping between systems and praying that they wouldn't encounter Cylons. This time however, they had encountered Cylons in the system, but the situation represented a unique possibility.

After an initial reconnaissance mission with the blackbird, it was revealed that there were very few ships in the system, and a Tylium mining facility on a moon orbiting the only habitable planet in the system. After a raptor was sent in to photograph the facility, it was exactly the same as the facility that the Galactica's vipers had attacked almost two years ago, with one exception. There seemed to be a large structure which looked like some kind of communications hub. The mission had been planned, and the Galactica was getting ready to jump in as close to the moon as possible, to destroy the facility. Unlike the last time, they weren't relying on deception to overcome the Cylons; they were relying on brute strength. The plan was for the Galactica to jump in, and use it's broadside cannons to destroy most of the raiders. Then, the vipers would launch and destroy the facility. Once the facility was destroyed, four raptors full of marines would be dispatched to the communications structure, infiltrate it, and obtain all information they could. Adama and Tigh were hoping that the structure would contain information on Cylon deployments in the area, and that they could then use that information to avoid the Cylons.

The plan had gone off without a hitch, and only minimal damage done to Galactica. There was one thing that the Colonials didn't count on however, and that was the information contained inside the communications structure. Instead of deployments of the entire area, they found a map. On the map were a series of red dots and the Colonials couldn't conceive of their meaning. Also on the map there was one large red dot, with a label: Earth


	3. Chapter 3 Liberation

**Reply to Reviews: Tweeky**

There's a "Flight Lieutenant Valerii" onboard the _Osprey_ which spots the Cylon Raiders in the first chapter. This says that either the Cylons have infiltrated Earth, or that there is a person called Sharon Valerii who lives on Earth. I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Alatoic01. We 'might' get a colony somewhere. All I know (and am willing to tell you) is that After recovery from Earth being attacked is done, manufacturing and research into all things "Space Technology" will slowly become one of the main industries on Earth.

Cj-cold

The concept of missile interception will be discussed in the next chapter. I didn't forget about it, promise. The issues surrounding the 9 member nations will also be addressed soon too, and why they didn't invite others to join. Same with the transparent dome on the _Triton_.

If you asked me, this is a pretty damn good chapter. Next one will be similar.

Leave plenty of reviews too… it helps me write faster;)

**Chapter 3 – Liberation**

**Poseidan class ship – _Arawan_ – Earth Orbit**

Commander Heidi Galtua stood on the bridge of the Poseidan class ship, the _Arawan_ and looked out at the battle that was being waged ahead. They couldn't get any nukes anywhere near the enemy capital ship, as the fighters would shoot them down. Their own fighters were being shut down by unknown equipment malfunctions, which had something to do with the enemy combatants above Earth. Luckily however, the shields that the _Poseidan_ class ships were equipped with prevented any major malfunctions on the cruisers, but they were taking the majority of the punishment from the enemy fighters. Four _Poseidan_ class ships were in orbit around Earth now, and two were in the outer solar system, between the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, guarding the uncompleted _Triton_. She thought about how the shields of the _Poseidan_ could absorb most of what the enemy fighters were sending at them, providing that they shot down any fighters which were carrying nukes before they could launch them. It was at that point in time that Commander Galtua had an idea.

Five minutes later, after communicating with the other _Poseidan_ ships in orbit, as well as the British Military on the Earth below, they had come up with an operable plan. Two other _Poseidan_ class ships, the _Boreas_ and _Odyssey_ were forming up in a tight formation with the _Arawan_, while the _Chu-Jung _was maintaining it's relief operations, picking up all shut down fighters that it could. The _Boreas_ and _Odyssey_ were now vertically above and below the _Arawan_ respectively. Communications were flowing between the two ships as fast as they could, as a great deal of coordination was needed if this were to work. Commander Galtua of the _Arawan_ received word from the British Military that they had launched a cluster of ten nuclear missiles at the enemy capital ship from the ground. The missiles had to be in tight proximity to each other, otherwise the plan would not work. The British Military was asked to launch the nukes, because they were the closest country on the surface of the Earth, to the fighting, and that launching the nukes would put the three _Poseidan_ class ships in a direct line between the flight path of the nukes, and the enemy capital ship.

All at once, the _Arawan, Odyssey,_ and _Boreas_ surged forward, moving towards the enemy capital ship at the same speed, and maintained formation. The _Arawan_ shut off it's primary thrusters, and started to drift straight towards the enemy capital ship, which dwarfed the three _Poseidan_ cruisers. Earth's fighters were maintaining a formation with the ships, behind them, and towards the sides, shooting at any enemy fighters while they were a great distance away, so not to get shut down.

The two other Poseidan ships had also shut off their main thrusters which were providing them with a forwards acceleration. The _Arawan_ began to use it's manoeuvring thrusters to spin sideways, but keeping it's forward momentum. It then also began to use its manoeuvring thrusters to roll the ship sideways, so that the dorsal (top) side of the ship was the face, facing the enemy capital ship. This was the first time that the manoeuvre had been tried, ever.

All at once, every rail gun battery on the _Arawan_, _Oddysey, _and _Boreas _opened up, shooting at the enemy fighters. The rail gun batteries on the _Arawan_ sent a wall of ammunition in a forwards direction, while the rail guns on the _Boreas_ and _Oddysey_ prevented any fighters from swinging around and attacking from the rear. The fighters which were travelling 'next to' the formation also opened up with everything that they had. Together, it created a wall of ammunition which the enemy fighters couldn't escape.

Commander Galtua was watching the radar screens closely. There was one for each axis that could be travelled in space, X, Y and Z. There was also a radar screen which tried to give the relative position of contacts in all three dimensions, but Commander Galtua was interested in the one showing the Z axis. Although all of their guns were firing, the amount of enemy fighters were not diminishing in any sense. It seemed as if they were keeping back, out of range of the rail guns, and not attacking. That was fine for them to do. She looked at the distance of the ten objects bearing down on the _Arawan_ very quickly from behind, where Earth was located. Anticipation grew in the bridge of the _Arawan_ as the objects got closer and closer. The enemy capital ship also drew closer to the formation of the Poseidan class ships.

A minute passed in complete silence as everyone watched the radar screen.

"Order the fighters to break off and stay clear," Commander Galtua said. Almost immediately, the order was carried out and she watched on the radar screen as the fighters pulled away and headed for the _Chu-Jung_ for protection, leaving the formation of three _Poseidan_ class ships alone. "Take the shields down and route the power from them into the thrusters. We need to get clear of that ship," she ordered. Immediately, the main sub light drive engines for the _Arawan_ came online and the ship started to gradually move forward. The other two Poseidan class ships broke out of the formation and started manoeuvring so that they would not hit the enemy capital ship.

**Bridge of the Poseidan class ship _Chu-Jung_ – Earth Orbit **

Commander Hitiksu watched as the other three cruisers pulled off their manoeuvre. They had effectively shielded the nukes launched from Earth from the enemy fighters and escorted them close to the enemy capital ship. Now it was a race for the cruisers, they needed to halt their forward momentum, or change their course so that they wouldn't collide with the enemy ship. Then, if they had enough time, they needed to clear the area so they wouldn't be damaged by the nuclear explosions.

He watched, as did most of the rest of the ship, through viewing monitors which were situated throughout the ship, as the cruisers pulled off their manoeuvres perfectly. He watched as the first missile approached the ship. He closed his eyes and turned away as he could tell there was a large flash of light, and another, and another, and another. After he judged that all of the missiles had impacted, he turned around and saw pieces of the enemy capital ship drifting away from each other. He was surprised at that fact, as energy released from the nuclear explosions should have completely destroyed most of the ship. Instead, it had splintered into six or seven pieces.

He looked up at the radar screen and saw that a large portion of the fighters were making a direct beeline for Earth itself.

"This is the Poseidan _Chu-Jung_ to all military units. Enemy fighters are moving to attack Earth," he said into the radio in front of him. He received a series of confirmations and saw that the few remaining, operable, Earth fighters were moving from a position around the _Chu-Jung_ to intercept the enemy fighters. The _Boreas_ and _Odyssey_ were also moving to intercept the enemy fighters. He looked at the _Arawan_ and saw that it was drifting in space, and that there were signs of fires and decompressions onboard the ship. He couldn't worry about that now, the fighters heading towards Earth were the more pressing issue. He also saw on the radar screen that a small group of fighters were flying in the opposite direction and seemed to be trying to head out of the solar system from their vector and speed that they were travelling at. He dismissed them and put his thoughts about them into the back of his mind.

During the battle, he had seen a number of enemy missiles get through Earth's defences and impact on the surface of the Earth. From what he could judge from his position, most of the missiles had impacted in the general areas of Europe, Eastern Asia, Africa, and some had impacted upon the East Coast of America, although he couldn't tell whether it was Canada or the USA which had taken the blast. He knew that some of the fighters that were now heading towards Earth were carrying nuclear missiles, and he needed to stop them.

**Thirty Minutes Later – Bridge of Research Vessel _Copenhagen _**

Dr. Ivan Wotresser stood on the bridge of the _Copenhagen_. They had received word of the attacks against Earth a couple of hours ago, and were staying well away. They were currently in an orbit between Mars and the Asteroid Belt. The _Copenhagen_ as well as the _New Jersey_, were the only two non-militaristic vessels built by the ten-member nations of the Planetary Defence Organisation on Earth, which to this day, remained secret. Although they were non-military vessels, most of their research was for military purposes. Currently, they had just developed a larger rail-gun capable of launching multiple shells, instead of bullets, at once, which could be used fairly effectively against larger ships.

Dr. Wotresser heard a beep coming from the radar station onboard the _Copenhagen_ and was immediately distressed. He looked over to the commander of the ship, Lieutenant-Commander Aaron Doral and saw that he was already communicating with the radar officer on board the ship. After a few brief words back and forwards with the radar officer, Lieutenant-Commander Doral hit the button on the intercom.

"Attention. Enemy fighters have been spotted approaching our ship. Prepare for immediate Hyperspace jump in three minutes," Doral said into the intercom. Immediately, people started scrambling around, doing their jobs and preparing for a hyperspace jump. Dr. Wotresser moved over to look at the radar screen, and saw that there was approximately fifteen blips approaching them from the direction of Earth.

"How do we know that they're enemy fighters?" Dr. Wotresser asked the Commander.

"Earth would just send one ship to deliver intel, not fifteen. Also, judging from the size, the ships are about the size of a fighter, and ours don't move that fast," Commander Doral said. Dr Wotresser took in the information and moved over to the unmanned visual inspection panel. All Earth ships were equipped with a number of small, rotational telescopes mounted within holes in the hull, which could be used to visually inspect objects in space, as well as to plot their position against the relative position of surrounding stars. He aligned three telescopes towards the vector that the fighters were approaching and aligned them up so they gave one image, which he put up on the view screen. He just got time to briefly glance at the blueish-scimitar shaped ships before he saw a barrage of missiles released from the fighters, all of which were heading either for the _Copenhagen_ or the _New Jersey_. He looked over to Commander Doral, but saw that he was already onto it.

"Jump now!" he commanded. Dr. Wotresser didn't have time to brace himself for the violent entry into hyperspace and was thrown off of his seat onto the floor, where he knocked his head.

He must have been lying on the floor for a few minutes before he fully came to. He could briefly remember hearing a number of loud bangs while he was semi-conscious, and put it off to dreams, until he heard another one, but this time while he was fully conscious. He heard another one, and another one, and another one. Dr. Wotresser slowly and quietly got up and put his head around the side of the visual inspection console which he had fallen behind in the jump. What he saw shocked him to the core. Commander Doral had a pistol in his hand, and had already shot everyone onboard the bridge of the _Copenhagen_. Dr. Wotresser quickly ducked back behind the visual inspection console and gathered his thoughts. He thought that he must have been dreaming, as no Commander would have any reason for shooting anyone on the bridge of his ship, let alone everyone. It was then that he heard another voice, and he peaked his head around the corner of the console again. He saw Commander Doral putting away his weapon, and talking to someone. He could only see their backs, but from what he could see, the person he was talking to was a tall, fairly attractive, blonde female.

"Wait here, we've got a Base Star in close proximity. We'll dispatch Centurions to clean up the rest of the crew," the female said to Commander Doral.

"By your command," Dr. Wortresser saw Commander Doral reply.

**Cockpit - _Adriatic –_ Colonial Fleet**

Without explanation, the Colonial Military and the Government had relocated all of the civilians off of his ship and into others throughout the fleet. Now, he sat in the cockpit of the _Adriatic_, surrounded by Colonial Vipers, and with eight raptors from the _Galactica _on their way towards his ship. He didn't know what he had done, or what any of the civilians had done on his ship. His first thought was that maybe there was a bomb, but that was not the case as all of the ships were still in their normal formation and hadn't spread out. He heard the raptor set down above the docking hatch on the dorsal side of his ship, and headed into the rear compartment to meet the boarding party from the _Galactica_. He was surprised to find just one man waiting for him.

"Are you the pilot?" the crewmember from _Galactica_ asked.

"Yes. Why?" he answered.

"Captain Lee Adama… Can you and your co-pilot please meet with me, we have some things to discuss," Adama said to him. Doubtful about what was happening, he turned and went back to the cockpit and collected his co-pilot. When he returned, he found that Lee Adama was sitting behind one of the tables that had been erected for the civilians.

"Why have all of the civilians been relocated off of this vessel? And why is the CAP surrounding us?" his co-pilot asked. He too wanted to know the answer to these questions.

"The Colonial Government needs this ship for a highly classified mission," Captain Adama replied. "Before I can say any more, you need to accept the mission by signing these papers from President Keikeya's office. They're non-disclosure agreements. If you don't sign, we'll just find some other pilots to fly the mission with this ship." He thought about it for a moment, and he could see that his co-pilot was also considering the mission.

"Will it be dangerous?" he asked.

"Very," Captain Adama replied. He gave it a couple more moments of thought before he grabbed the papers and signed, his co-pilot not too far behind. Captain Adama collected up the papers and pulled out a data disc. "Three days ago, as you know, the _Galactica_ raided a Cylon Tylium processing and extraction plant. We found this," Captain Adama said while putting the data disc down on the table.

"What is it?" he saw his co-pilot ask.

"It's a map," Captain Adama replied.

"To where?" the co-pilot asked.

"Earth," Captain Adama stated. Before it could sink in, he continued. "We've calculated that it will take the fleet another year to reach it at our current speed. As you know, the fleet is restricted in the range of its jumps by the capability of the ship with the FTL drive with the lowest distance. Your ship on the other hand, apart from the Galactica, has the highest distance capable FTL drive. Your mission is to use this map and to go ahead of the fleet, and get to Earth. You are to spend as little time as possible at any one place, and jump as often as possible. Food, fuel and some basic mechanics are on board the raptors waiting off of your starboard side. We've calculated that if you make a jump at least twice a day, it will take you about a month to reach Earth," Captain Adama explained while the faces of the pilots had completely stunned expressions on their faces.

"What if we come across the Cylons," the pilot of the _Adriatic_ felt himself asking through the shock.

"Jump. Hopefully, you shouldn't encounter them if you don't jump into any systems, and instead, jump into the space between systems. Two of the turrents off of the Galactica have been removed and will be placed on this ship, so hopefully, along with the weapons already onboard the _Adriatic_, you should be able to shoot down any missiles that may happen to cross your path," Captain Adama explained.

"When do we leave," the _Adriatic's_ co-pilot asked.

"Two days," Captain Adama replied.


	4. Chapter 4 Catastrophe

**Chapter 4 – Catastrophe**

**Poseidon class ship _Arawan_ – Earth Orbit**

She awoke with a start and was immediately disorientated. She didn't know where she was, why she was there, and why it was dark and she could smell smoke. Then it all hit her, the last thing she could remember was onboard the bridge of the _Arawan_. Carefully taking a look around the dark room, she could see that that was where she still was, but on the floor. It was just then that she realised that there was someone near her, moaning in pain. There were no lights, and Heidi Galtua carefully moved across to the sound of the moaning person.

"Hello, can you hear me," she said whilst almost tripping on a chunk of a command console which had been splintered apart and was on the floor.

"Yes, over here," a female voice said through clasped teeth, barely audible. Commander Galtua knelt down beside the person, her night vision finally coming to her. She could barely see the outline of someone laying on the floor. She put her hand down to touch them but she met a wet sticky substance, which she knew was blood.

"You' re going to be alright, I'll go and get help," she said. She slowly made her way over towards where she knew the exit from the bridge was, but on her way, she caught a glimpse of one of the remaining monitors which were still operational. She went over to it and she felt a sense of dread come over her as she looked at basic statistics of her ship. Power to all systems except artificial gravity and life support was out throughout the ship, and even some parts of the ship didn't have those. There were several sections open to space. Fires were located in several other sections. There was absolutely no power to the engines. And worst of all, they were in a deteriorating orbit, and would hit Earth's atmosphere in about two hours. She left the station and made her way over to the exit for the bridge. She tried the phone that was housed near the doorway, but it was dead. She knew that she'd have to navigate her way to medical to get any help.

Hours later, Commander Galtua was kneeling down beside the injured person that she had found in the bridge. She hadn't gone to the medical bay, as the path was blocked by twisted bulkheads and wreckage not too far from the bridge. She was the only surviving person in this section of the ship, save the injured woman on the floor, which she doubted would survive. There was no one who was going to come to rescue her, and any minute now, the enemy fighters would finish off the ship. She didn't think that the damage to the ship would have been this extensive. She shields couldn't hold against the energy released from ten nuclear detonations occurring in close proximity to the ship. Added to the fact was that one of the enemy ship's large triangular arms had collided directly with the last remaining shields, and destroyed them, and had continued its vector and had impacted the _Arawan_. Heidi Galtua guessed that it was either equipment failure or the multiple electromagnetic pulses released from the ten nuclear detonations which had shut down their systems, but she expected the shutdown of all of their systems, save life-support, was from the damage sustained to the ship.

It had been her idea, and her decision to use the manoeuvre that they had just performed, but she thought that the ship would be able to handle the consequences. Instead, because of her rash thinking, she had cost the lives of almost everyone on the ship, and she would soon follow. She was responsible for the loss of over five hundred personnel.

It was then that she saw light entering the bridge, and heard a loud sound emanating from down the hallway from the bridge. She realised that someone may have been cutting through the damage hallway. She may be saved after all, but she knew that her consciousness would live with the decision that she had made for the rest of her life.

**Research Vessel _Copenhagen_ – Unknown Location**

Dr. Wotresser had waited until Lieutenant Commander Aaron Doral had left the bridge unit he moved or made any noise of any kind. The enemy had infiltrated their ship, and probably the government of at least one country on Earth. That was the only explanation that he could come up with to explain why the commander shot all of the personnel on the bridge, after they had jumped to an unknown location, which he had plotted. Dr. Wotresser knew all about the translations off of 'The Great Ship' in the Antarctic, as it was being called. His mother was Dr. MacGuwyre, one of the original scientists who had found the ship in the Antarctic. His mother had told him everything about it, and he had wanted in. Unlike his mother, who was an Environmental Scientist, Dr. Wotresser was a physicist and chemist rolled into one. The _Copenhagen_ was his brainchild. He had overseen the planning and development of most of the ship. Now, as far as he knew, people from the Twelve Tribes had infiltrated his ship, and taken control. The translations said to 'be aware' of the Twelve Tribes, and that there was a dispute between the Twelve Tribes, and the Thirteenth Tribe which had gone back generations throughout their history. It had been inferred that human beings on Earth may be descendants of this Thirteenth Tribe, ancestors from the race of people who built 'The Great Ship', but most of those speculations were dismissed almost as soon as they had come out. The fact of the matter was that humanity's evolution could be traced on Earth, and Earth was the birthplace of humanity, no matter what the translations said, hard evidence was more believable.

Dr. Wotresser moved to one of the dead bodies which was laying on the ground and searched for a weapon, but found nothing. He didn't find a weapon until the fourth body he searched, the communications officer, a woman that he was going to ask out today. He grabbed her pistol out of her pants and headed out of the control room.

The ship was eerily quiet as Dr. Wotresser moved through the corridors of the _Copenhagen_. It wasn't soon until he came to a door. He knew that on the other side was a large lab, which would have a lot of supplies within it that he might be able to use. He put his hand onto the wheel which would open the door when a loud clanking noise reverberated around the ship. Instinctively, Dr. Wotresser jumped back, and for a second, he thought that he might have knocked something. Then, he heard another clanking noise, and he realised that he hadn't knocked anything, but something was happening to the outer part of the ship. Suddenly it dawned on him; the enemy was trying to dock with the ship. He knew that he didn't have much time to traverse the corridors of the two hundred metre long ship, so that he could get to the docking port in time. He hoped that he could decompress the airlock while the enemy ship was docked, therefore decompressing the enemy ship as well. There was a very high risk that the hull might be damaged, but he had to take that risk.

Before he'd even started, he knew that he would be too late, and that he wouldn't arrive in time. He had an idea, and began to slowly move along the corridors away from the air-lock, towards the control room.

**One Day Later – Poseidon Class ship _Chu-Jung_**

Commander Hitiksu was once again looking at one of the monitors showing an image of the _Arawan_, completely powerless in a descending orbit around Earth. Every _Osprey_ class shuttle that could be called into action had been used to evacuate any personnel which had been aboard the ship. They had explored all avenues which were possible to save the ship from the deteriorating orbit, and the only viable one had been to repair the breached sections surrounding the engine room and control rooms, and repair the engines. There was one major flaw in that plan however, as by the time that repairs would have been fully complete, the _Arawan_ would have crashed into the Earth. It was now, with no other choice that he gave the order for it's destruction before it crashed into Earth, causing even more people to die.

"Alpha One, this is the _Chu-Jung. _You have a go, over," Commander Hitiksu said into the radio to a pair of F/SB 603 _Albatross _class bombers. He watched as the pair of cylindrical shaped bombers moved forward, and a missile was launched from the underside of each. The missiles streaked towards the _Arawan_ in the distance. A few moments later, a large flash erupted from the fore section of the _Arawan_, and then another bright flash erupted from the rear of the ship. He watched the monitor as the flashes died down, and watched as secondary explosions tore apart what was left of the _Arawan_ after the twin nuclear explosions.

_**Osprey 062 – Area 51 – Nevada Desert – Western United States of America**_

Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson lifted the _Osprey_ off of the ground in the take-off and landing area that had been designated at Area 51 in the Nevada Desert. The rear compartment was loaded with food and building materials for refugees from the Chicago area. The city had taken a direct nuclear missile, and the numbers of refugees were in the hundreds of thousands. This was his flight crew's first relief mission, and the other _Osprey_ pilots had warned them that what they were going to see would not be pretty. He hit the switch to turn on the two large rotational jet engines, powered by the by-product of a nuclear fusion reactor which was located aboard the _Triton_. As they switched on, he slowly shifted the throttle for the jet engines up to low and turned off the VTOL engines which had been keeping them hovering in the air above Area 51. The _Osprey _accelerated and he checked with Captain Organ that their route was programmed into the computers. After receiving an acknowledged sign, he put the computer over onto Autopilot and relaxed in his seat.

Things were not pretty here on Earth. Already, the militaries of almost every nation on Earth were on high alert, either ready to repel more enemy invaders from the stars, or to lash out upon those nations which had hid the truth from them. Currently, the Planetary Defence Organisation was enacting legislation which would secure their facilities, as well as brief every government around the world about what had been going on in the last sixty years or so. That was being done at this moment in an emergency session of the United Nations which was being held in Italy. He knew that life on Earth was going to change, but he didn't know whether it would be for the better or for the worse.

**Colonial _Raptor_ 1315 – Colonial Fleet – Colonial Uncharted Space**

Lee Adama, callsign 'Apollo' was coming along for this raptor mission, to see how the beacons were deployed. The raptor was the Colonial's version of an all purpose shuttle/scout ship/sensor platform, and had an FTL (Faster than Light) jump capabilities. They were flying away from the Colonial remnant, a fleet of fifty ships which held the last surviving people of the Colonial Civilization. Only one of those ships was a fully combat capable ship, the Battlestar _Galactica_, which was commanded by his father, Commander Adama. Close to two years ago, they had encountered another surviving Battlestar, the Battlestar _Pegasus_. The _Pegasus_ had left the Colonial Fleet to return to the colonies to search for survivors, and to hopefully return them to the remanent of the Twelve Colonies of Mankind, in their search for the mythical lost, thirteenth tribe which had settled on a planet called Earth. Now, every couple of systems or so, the _Galactica_ would deploy a raptor with a special communications beacon which had been co-developed by the crews of the _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_. The beacons were very small, too small to be detected by Dradis, and lay dormant for most of the time. When the _Pegasus_ decided to try and to return to the Colonial Fleet, it would follow the vector that Commander Adama had told the crew of the _Pegasus_ that they would be travelling along, stopping off at various systems along the way. There, they would send out a unique signal, and transmit it throughout the whole system. Then, if a beacon was present, it would activate and transmit a data-burst to the _Pegasus_, relaying the condition of the fleet and the Galactica at the time that it was deployed. It could then be used to trace the Galactica and the Fleet's path. They all hoped that the Cylons never discovered the Beacons, or else then, they were all doomed.


	5. Chapter 5 Aftermath

**Chapter 5 – Aftermath**

**BBC News – Earth**

"It has been three weeks since the attacks, and cleanup is still underway in various areas around the World. Since the United Nations has been dissolved, the Planetary Defence Organisation made legitimate, and the International Affairs Organisation been created in the United Nation's place, the number one priority has been relief efforts, as well as planetary defence. Later this week, every major nation on Earth which recognises the Planetary Defence Organisation will be equipped with the latest "Star Wars Defence Missile" Platforms which the United States, Russia, China and Germany have developed. More _Osprey_ class shuttles, as well as _Falcon,_ _Tiger, _and _Albatross_ fighters have been produced following the release of specifications of the craft to all major nations of Earth, and to major aeronautical manufacturers Lockheed and Boeing. Currently, all developed craft will be put to the Planetary Defence Organisation's use for relief efforts as well as planetary defence."

"The International Affairs Organisation today successfully completed negotiations with Korean officials which had withdrawn all international trade following the disclosure of 'The Great Ship', and all technologies which had been produced, claiming that such technologies should have been equally shared among all peoples, and that Western Powers were trying to monopolise other nations of Earth. Following this comment, the Planetary Defence Organisation released plans for _Poseidon_ and _Triton_ class ships to all government agencies, using the threat that any military action against another nation using the new technologies would be met with harsh penalties."

"Two _Poseidon_ class ships left orbit today, as the _Triton_ was completed today in the outer solar system. It will come into Earth orbit and serve as the primary defence. At more than sixteen times a _Poseidon_ class ship, the _Triton_ will serve as a docking port for all orbital traffic, and will launch all replacement satellites which were destroyed in the attacks. Sensor platforms have already been placed in strategic places around the solar system, giving a much greater coverage than what was previously in place, and should adequately provide enough warning in-case of future attacks."

"NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency) and AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science) today announced that they have successfully developed a hybrid _Osprey_ class shuttle capable of underwater travel, which they are calling the _Manta_. The plans were released to the two agencies by the Planetary Defence Organisation two weeks ago, with the idea that the organisations were to develop an underwater working model for the Planetary Defence Organisation. The PDO announced today that the _Manta_ class shuttles are capable of hovering up to ten metres above the ground using VTOL engines as well as an atmospheric/liquid operable turbine engine located within the two rotational engines on each side of the craft. The hull has been reinforced, and the _Manta_ is capable of free falling from orbit into an ocean and being fully operable. It is expected that a number of _Manta_ class submersibles, once completed, will be loaded with supplies, and dropped from a _Poseidon_ class ship in the upper atmosphere into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to start construction of a permanent underwater liveable habitat which is hoped to house some of the four-hundred million refugees which have been displaced out of their homes since the attacks."

"Recruitment levels are at astounding levels for the Planetary Defence Organisation

"Contracts have been given to major mining companies Rio Tinto, Newmont, and Broken Hill Productions, to being mining Jupiter's Moons, as well as the asteroid belt. Plans for _Baleen_ class cargo ships, as well as _Osprey_ class shuttles have been given to all three companies, and preliminary exploratory missions are set to begin within the month… This is D'Anna Biers, reporting for BBC News."

**Research Vessel _Copenhagen_ – Unknown Location. **

Dr. Wotresser looked up at the hulking metal frame of the enemy robot in front of him. He had been locked in the makeshift brig of the _Copenhagen_ for three weeks. He was the only survivor of the _Copenhagen's_ crew, except for those who were enemy agents. They had killed all the rest. The only thing that he had said to spare him was that God should have mercy on their souls when they die, and for some reason, that got their interest. Ever since then, they had been torturing him for all kinds of information, not just about Earth's military assets or capabilities, but religion, the political setting, technology, economics, anything that they could think about. For what must have been days, he had been kept in the dark, with no stimuli whatsoever. After that, the entire time that he had spent in the cell, he had been convinced that he was crazy, although he could remember a quote he had heard stating that 'if you know you're crazy, you're not crazy' and Dr. Wotresser was fairly sure that he was crazy. They had taken him out of the darkness a couple of days ago and then withheld food from him. He doubted that it could get any worse than what it was.

**Earth – London – England**

Commander Heidi Galtua didn't know what was going through the minds of her commanding officers. It was her decision that had killed over four hundred crew members on her ship, and injured more, but here they were giving her a medal, and the command of the new state of the art, Poseidon Class ship which had just finished construction in the Canadian construction yards, the _Solaris_. She was being transported to the ship immediately after the ceremony so that she could begin onboard her new command post. She knew that she didn't deserve it, and she had voiced her concerns to her commanding officers. For that, she was being appointed to a psychiatrist for basic therapy and to talk out how she felt about the situation. It was only her and a handful of personnel which walked off of the _Arawan_ alive, and the young woman that she had found in the dark on the bridge wasn't one of them. According to the paramedics, the woman she had found had died from internal bleeding shortly before Commander Galtua had been found in the bridge.

Apparently, the _Solaris_ was built with completely state of the art technology, meaning increased sensors, more powerful shields, more weapons, better hyperdrive systems, everything. She had been given a brief rundown of the ship via an email from the commander of the Canadian manufacturing facility. The one thing that she had taken particular note of was the fact that the hull was stronger than all other ships, more reinforced, so hopefully the disaster which occurred on the Arawan would not happen again. When she took command of the _Solaris_, she would make sure that it wouldn't happen again, and that the people responsible for the death of her crew and the loss of her ship would pay dearly.

**Headquarters of the Planetary Defence Organisation – Office of Board Member Dr. Bruce Miller**

Bruce Miller was sitting in his office going over the latest reports that had been handed to him. He was the grandson of Dr. David Miller, one of the original scientists on the Antarctic Peninsula who had discovered "The Great Ship". This latest report was very encouraging. A week and a half ago, they had discovered what had allowed the enemy to shut down their fighters; malicious code within the weapons and navigational programs that was standard for all the fighters, cargo ships, and shuttles. According to their experts, it had been impossible to remove the code from the programs, as it was far in advanced than anything that they'd ever encountered before, so new programs were developed in the strictest of confidence and secretly uploaded into each and every ship under the Planetary Defence Organisation's control. The International Affairs Organisation, which was launched by the PDO, to act as a replacement for the United Nations, as well as a major, international intelligence service was currently trying to root out the person or group responsible for implementing the code in the programs in the first place. The fact that two ICBM's were launched from American missile silo's towards China and the Middle East, but then were later shot down by America's own "Star Wars" missile defence program was additional proof that there were traitors in their midst, who could even be agents of this new enemy that they had encountered. A fully comprehensive background check was being done on all personnel, but they had yet to find anything.

Bruce Miller was one of three board members in charge of the scientific section of the PDO, and they were coming along nicely with some new developments. Preliminary research had been conducted onboard the _Copenhagen_ and _New Jersey_ into artillery sized rail guns, but the results were never collected following the destruction of both ships. No matter how hard he had tried to convince the other board members that at least one new research vessel was needed, over the production of more _Poseidon_ and _Triton_ class ships, they wouldn't listen. The majority of the board had been swung towards vengeance for the attacks against Earth no more than three weeks ago, as Dr. MacGuwyre, sister of Dr. Wotresser who had designed the ships, had rallied most of the board members into vengeance over the loss of her brother. Quite frankly, Dr. Miller was almost ready to join them, after all, Dr. Wotresser had been a very close and good friend of his, and if he could see vengeance payed, he would, however with their current arsenal, they would get slaughtered if they launched any kind of force against the enemy. Even if they knew where to start looking.

**_Falcon_ flight wing – CAP Duties around Earth**

Flying Officer Henry O'Connell, Red One, and Officer Cadet, Red Two, were the only two surviving pilots from the attack on Earth three weeks ago from Red Wing. At the time, Henry had been Red Two, but since the death of Wing Commander Anders, he had been promoted to the rank of Flying Officer and therefore the leader of red wing. It was up to him, who hadn't even completed all the training modules for a _Falcon_ to teach the new _Falcon_ pilots how to fly the machines. Therefore, while they were flying large orbits around Earth, he was making the rest of the wing do manoeuvres, formations, and battle tactics. They had an _Osprey_ class shuttle with them all the time, for additional sensor range and sensitivity. It was because of the _Osprey_ shuttle flying in the wing with them that they were able to detect a series of Hyperjumps which occurred very close to the earth.

"Red One, this is _Osprey 079_, be advised, we've detected unknown radar anomalies approximately one thousand kilometres behind you, over," Flying Officer O'Connell heard over the radio.

"Rodger that, we're on it. Call in all additional fighters in the area for support, over," O'Connell replied to the _Osprey_. "Red Wing, turn one eighty and engage full throttle to intercept, over," O'Connell said into the radio. He pushed forward on the joystick and pulled back on the throttle, turning the ship downwards in a very tight one-hundred and eighty degree turn. When he was nearing the intercept vector, he pushed the throttle up to maximum and felt the fighter go shooting forwards. He looked down onto his radar screen and could see that the unknown object were at a distance of at least five-hundred kilometres.

"Red leader, this is _Osprey 079_, be advised, a squadron of _Tigers_ are in the area. Enemy fighters are approaching Earth, the _Tigers_ have engaged, over," the communications officer of _Osprey 079_ said over the radio to O'Connell. He looked ahead and saw a brief flash, and hoped that it was one of the enemy fighters.

Five minutes later, Flying Officer O'Connell could see the battle. He looked down to the radar screen and saw that three fighters had left the main battle and were heading towards the atmosphere, and he could see that it was above the United States. Although Flying Officer Henry O'Connell was from Australia, he knew that the United States couldn't suffer any more damage as they were the main manufacturing body of the PDO, and they needed all the numbers that they could get at the moment.

"Red Two through Five, form up on me. Red Six through ten, join the _Tiger_ wing in battle and join us afterwards, over," O'Connell said into the radio. The nose of his _Falcon_ fighter dipped downwards and he moved off at maximum speed towards the atmosphere. When he was within a shorter distance, and could just barely see the outlines of the fighters, he could see that they were a different type than the scimitar shaped fighters which had been involved in the initial attack. He couldn't make out any details, but these fighters were boxy shaped things, and reminded Henry bombers, as well as the _Osprey_ class shuttles.

"Red Leader, be advised, F-22s are in the air and flying towards an intercept course. SAM missiles have been launched, over," a voice said over the radio. Henry took that into advisement, and kept approaching the enemy fighters. He and the rest of his wing were now directly behind the enemy fighters, and to his surprise, were closing the distance. It was then that the enemy fighters in front of him scrambled off into all directions, and Henry instantly saw why, once they were out of the way. Ten missiles were heading for the four fighters, and Henry immediately pulled up on his joystick, pulling the fighter up and out of the path of the missiles.

"Incoming friendly fire," Henry said into the radio, knowing that he was already too late and hoping that his pilots had seen the missiles. "Status," he said into the radio, and thankfully, all of his fighters in the group replied that they were fine. The enemy fighters had now split up and were heading in different directions. "Red wing, split up to follow them. Red five, go with Red Four, over," O'Connell said into the radio.

They had passed the upper atmosphere long ago, and his fighter was now shaking with vibrations at the air around him got thicker. Luckily, the fighter was capable of a very fast re-entry into the atmosphere, or that's what he remembered hearing at one of his training lectures. He hoped that it was true, and that his fighter lived up to the expectations. He let off a couple of shots towards the enemy fighter, and it didn't even try to manoeuvre as the shots went wide from the vibrations of the craft.

Flying Officer O'Connell could now see the frame of his cockpit module glowing red hot and he doubted that the fighter could take much more. He could now see the upper cloud layer and they were approaching it fast. Instantly, Henry had to roll his fighter out of the way as the enemy fighter suddenly pulled it's nose up, so it was facing perpendicular to the course that it was flying on, greatly reducing it's speed. Henry's fighter went shooting past it, and he couldn't believe how a craft could have that much manoeuvrability within an atmospheric environment. Pulled up on his joystick to raise the nose of the craft, but he could barely move it from the sheer velocity of the craft. By the time he got his fighter to a horizontal flying position, the enemy craft would have been long gone. He pulled the throttle right down so that the engines were on minimal power, and engaged the air brakes. He hit the switch which put the fighter back into Zero-Gravity manoeuvring, using bursts of compressed gas to manoeuvre the craft. He pulled back on the joystick as hard as he could, and the _Falcon's_ nose pulled up marginally, but at least now, he wasn't travelling downward and he could reduce his air speed until he was more maneuoverable.

He looked down to his Radar screen to see four additional contacts approaching, and he was thankful to see an IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) signal coming from them. He saw them each launch missiles at the enemy craft, but the craft easily dodged the missiles, some of which just went dead and continued on a straight course before exploding.

More objects appeared on the radar, which were identified as more missiles incoming.

"F-22's be advised, enemy fighter has the capability to jam the missiles. Use heat-seekers only," O'Connell said into the radio, having guessed the reason why the missiles stopped tracking the enemy ship.

By now, he had pulled his fighter around, and was heading straight towards the enemy fighter on a collision course. Rail-gun rounds streamed out from Henry's _Falcon_ fighter, but the enemy fighter easily dodged them. It began flying in a helix spiral pattern horizontally directly towards Henry's fighter, and then at the last minute, it dived down from an upwards arm of the helix spiral it was flying and headed straight down. Henry could see the friendly F/A-18 Hornets in the distance, and he rolled his fighter downward so he was following the enemy fighter. He just now realised that they were over a city, and from the looks of it, it must have been Chicago, as no other American city had been bombed as bad as this one had.

He let off another volley of rail-gun rounds and was surprised when this time, they struck their mark, damaging the enemy ship ahead of him. Instantly, smoke started emerging from the rear of the enemy ship, and it began to spiral out of control. Henry knew that they wouldn't survive the impact, but he kept on firing anyway. The only other strike that he got was on the rear corner of the ship, jarring it's vector upwards so it wasn't going to crash head on into the ground. He pulled his fighter up and watched as the enemy ship crashed into what was a built up area of the city. Later, it would be revealed that the enemy ship crashed into the former "Federal Reserve Bank" building.

**_Osprey 062 – _Approaching Chicago**

They were all staring out of the front cockpit of the _Osprey_ as they approached the outskirts of the city of Chicago. Cars were abandoned on the highways, rubbish littered the surrounding areas, and the farms looked like they hadn't been tended to in days. They had to land on an airfield called Winkler Airport, on the other side of Chicago, and had to make a slow overpass of the city to look for survivors. It was doubtful that any would be present now, as radiation sickness would have set into those who did survive the blast wave created by the enemy's nuke.

"Contact," Lieutenant Sharon Valerii said out loud. "No IFF signal present," she added. "Another contact. IFF Signal. _Falcon 099_. It looks to be in pursuit of the other craft, bearing eighty degrees north, by fifteen degrees incline." In a few moments, Lieutenant Valerii had focused the various telescopic cameras onto the enemy ship, and had them automatically tracking it. Samuel Johnson could see that it was indeed an enemy fighter from the attacks three weeks ago.

"Weapons?" he queried.

"Rail-gun turrent is active," Valerii reported.

"Sir, if we fly lower, the enemy ship shouldn't be able to detect us," Captain Organ said to him.

"Brace yourselves," he said to the crew of the _Osprey_. Momentarily, Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson was twisting various levers, punching buttons and moving joysticks. Instantly, the rotational engines the _Osprey_ moved from being locked in place in a horizontal position, to having the main exhaust pointing fifteen degrees above the horizon. The VTOL jets on the side of the craft had swivelled downwards. The craft jerked downwards and continuted to accelerate towards the ground. When they were a hundred metres off of the ground, Flight Lieutenant Johnson hit various switches and moved a number of levers again, and the VTOL engines activated, shooting jets of air towards the ground, and the rotational engines now moved so that they were pointing fifteen degrees below the horizon. The _Osprey_ almost jerked so that it's downwards velocity was zero. The rotational engines moved back to a horizontal position where they were locked in place, and the VTOL engines shut down. The _Osprey _had successfully dropped two kilometres of altitude in less than half a minute. They looked up just in time to see the enemy craft, trailing smoke, crash into one side of the remains of the "Federal Reserve Bank", and emerge out the other side.

They diverted from their flight route and hovered above the crash site of the enemy craft. Using the telescopic cameras, they surveyed the area for any movement of any kind. Then, they switched to infra-red vision for heat signatures, and they could see a couple which may have been residual heat from the ship's engines and power plant. Deciding that there were no survivors, they moved on and continued on their original flight path, radioing in that the preliminary survey indicated no survivors. Little did they know, that the survivors of the crash had just shut down their systems until they had detected that the _Osprey_ had vanished. They then waited half an hour, and then activated their systems and cut themselves free of the crashed Heavy Raider. Four mechanical, hominoid, type frames emerged from the wreckage, then followed by a more human looking figure with dark skin and went by the name of Simon.


	6. Chapter 6 Protection

Reply to Reviews

Cj-cold

The fighters have been replaced with F-22. Another Triton is in the works, and things will change soon!

You'll get to see more of the PDO's inner workings next chapter, or the chapter after that… promise

**Authors Notes**

There's a new fighter that (has/is?) been developed that's meant to have VTOL capabilities and be as fast (or almost) as the F-22. I'm in Australia, and remember seeing something on the TV a couple of years ago, about Australia's gonna buy a whole heap from America. Anyone knows the name/designation for that kind of fighter, give us a yell.

In theory, the communications method I've devised in this chapter works, in theory. I've seen something like this on "Beyond Tomorrow", where they just align two infra-red/laser things and it allows communications… read the chapter to find out.

**Chapter 6 – Protection**

**One Day Later**

**C-601 _Baleen _Class Cargo Ship - Chicago City**

Sergeant Harrisman and Sergeant Smith were flying their _Baleen_ class cargo ship towards Chicago city, with a full team of engineers and heavy equipment inside the container section of the ship. They were briefed today that an enemy ship had been shot down over the area and that their mission was to fly the engineers and equipment in to retrieve it. The cockpit was to be kept sealed at all times, to stop the radiation from reaching the unprotected pilots and crew. The rest of the engineers had to wear radiation suits, and all equipment was going to go through a cleansing process after its use. The ship was going to be kept in a facility near Area 51, which was supposed to have adequate radiation shielding. For Sergeant Harrisman and the rest of the crew of six were glad to finally get this assignment after doing twelve hour shifts running supplies back and forward to various parts of the world for the refugees from the attacks. They had an _Osprey_ class cargo ship flying with them, which had the sensor data to determine the amount of radiation down there, as well to fly as escort. They had just come up to the Central Business District of Chicago now, and were hovering above it, using the cameras mounted over the ship to determine an adequate landing site near the crash. It was then that Sergeant Harrisman heard the alarm sound throughout the cockpit, and seconds later, his weapons officer said

"Something down there has a missile lock on us… incoming missile." Henry immediately twisted the lever which turned the two giant rotational engines attached to the side of the ship into a vertical position.

"Brace yourselves for turbulence," Sergeant Smith said into the radio to the crew of engineers. Almost immediately, the ship started to fly vertically upwards as Sergeant Harrisman put the throttles to full. He looked up at the monitor showing the crash site and could see an object coming towards them very quickly. It was then that he looked across to Sergeant Smith, a look of horror on his face. Seconds later, the _Baleen_ cargo ship exploded in a giant fireball, one hundred metres above the ground.

**Colonial Battlestar _Galactica_ **

They had been occupying this system for close to two days collecting resources and stocking up on supplies. They were recalling all of their shuttles and were readying to jump out of the system when a number contacts jumped in.

"DRADIS contact," Lieutenant Gaeta said to everyone in the Command Information Centre (CIC). He watched as Admiral Adama looked at the DRADIS screen. Gaeta could see that some of the shuttles were still coming up from the planet's surface.

"Dee, order all of the civilian ships to jump. Tell them that we'll take the shuttles and jump to their position as soon as we have them all," Admiral Adama said to Petty Officer "Dee" Dualla, the communications officer. "Set Condition One throughout the Ship and Launch Vipers," he ordered. Gaeta grabbed the handset and switched it to 'announcement'.

"Attention All Hands, set condition one through out the ship. Repeat, set condition one throughout the ship," he said into the handset, causing his voice to be played from every speaker system within the ship.

Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace sat within her Viper within the launch tubes of _Galactica_. The Colonial Viper was a tri-winged fighter craft, capable of remarkable manoeuvring. It was powered by three large engines, as well as two reverse thrust motors and a Reaction Control System used for manoeuvring. It had two rail-guns mounted underneath the two ventral wings, and was a one manned fighter. Instantly, Starbuck's Viper was shot out of the launch tubes lining the flight pods of the Battlestar Galactica. The launch tubes effectively delivered a Viper into space at a high velocity, much like a torpedo. Once the Viper was clear of the Galactica, the main engines would be fired and the pilot would take control.

Kara looked out of the front of her cockpit and saw the last of the civilian ships jumping to the emergency jump coordinates. It was just the Galactica, and the Cylons now. She spun her viper around so that she was heading along the vector which would take her to the Cylon ship, and couldn't believe her eyes. She could see a smallish, rectangular looking ship, which certainly didn't look like it belonged to the Cylons. But there were Raiders surrounding the ship, and more jumping in as she watched.

"Attention Galactica. The Cylon ship is an unknown, but there's Raiders all over it," she said into the wireless communications. She expected the Raiders to start to break formation from around the unknown ship, however they didn't. The Viper Squadron launched from the _Galactica_ was closing in towards the enemy formation when at one; they all disappeared in the flash of an FTL jump.

"Attention Galactica. The Cylons have jumped away," she said.

**Colonial Ship _Adriatic_ – Alpha Centauri System**

Riley Tuoa, pilot of the _Adriatic_ double checked the FTL coordinates which his co-pilot had plotted for their final jump. It had been a very long three weeks aboard the _Adriatic_, jumping at least twice a day. They had only encountered the Cylons three times, twice they had jumped away before anything could happen. The last time, they had stuck around until the Cylon's Raiders had gotten close to them and had launched missiles. They had come across an unusual Cylon ship, with a Basestar escorting it.

"Do you think we'll find it?" one of the technicians which had been put aboard the _Adriatic_ had asked.

"I don't know. We'll jump into the middle of the system and then use the raptor to look at each planet. Hopefully, we won't intimidate the people of the 13th Colony," Riley replied. The _Galactica_ had given them a raptor to use to scout out any systems that they might have found interesting, and to scout out the Earth System once they finally got there. They been jumping three times each day for the last couple of days, as their food stockpile was running short.

"Begin FTL checklist, and start spinning up the FTL drives," Riley Tuoa said. They waited a short while, making sure that they were ready, and that they had reviewed their protocols that they had developed for any anticipated scenario once they reached the Earth system. "Jump in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…" the co-pilot said. Instantaneously, the Colonial ship _Adriatic_ was transported from the Alpha Centauri System, to a location just outside the orbit of Pluto within the Sol. System.

**_Osprey_ class shuttle 062**

Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson and the rest of his team, Lieutenant Sharon Valerii and Captain Organ were flying out towards the Asteroid belt, carrying a geologist and engineer from the three major mining companies which had been signed on to commence mining of Jupiter's moons and the Asteroid belt. They were flying towards the _Poseidon_ class ship, the _Prometheus_ which was stationed near the Asteroid Belt, releasing a number of new sensor and communication relay satellites which had been built. Their secondary mission was to test the sensor relaying powers of the satellites, as well as their communication ability. The new satellites would allow almost instantaneous communication from any point in the solar system, to Earth or any other ship within the system. Their inbuilt radar and sensor packages allowed a greater view of the solar system, as well as added security. They worked by having a number of laser-point receivers and laser communications devices mounted on each of them. Each ship was also equipped with laser-point receivers and laser communications devices. If a priority message needed to be transmitted, the ship would use it's sensor equipment to align it's laser communications devices with the laser-point receivers on the satellites. Data could then be sent in bursts of light to and from a ship to a satellite. The satellite would then store the data and align it's own laser communications devices with another ship, Earth, or another Satellite for relaying just in case objects such as planets were in the way. The benefits of the system, which had been in progress for years, were that there was no network required between satellites or ships, all data was transmitted in bursts of laser light, which could only be hacked or intercepted if something was in the direct path of the laser itself. The software packages upon each satellite were very complex. If a foreign object was detected on it's radar or sensors, it was programmed to automatically search for the nearest shuttle, _Poseidon_, or _Triton_ class ship and then send an automatic communiqué to the ship warning of a foreign object, as well as pictures from the number of small telescopic cameras which were mounted on the satellite, as standard on all Earth ships, and to begin to relay real-time radar data to the ship. If it couldn't locate a ship, the coordinates for any existing laser communications array on Earth were programmed into the ship, and it would automatically send them there. This was done without any network on the satellite, or between ships and the satellite. The computer aboard the satellites was well in advance of many computers which could be found on Earth, and that had been the most difficult part of the entire process.

The last thing that Captain Organ, the communications officer aboard the _Osprey_ expected to receive was one of these data bursts from a satellite that they had deployed in the outer solar system.

"Lieutenant Johnson, bring our ship to a full stop," he said to the pilot of the ship.

"What's happening?" the Geologist from BHP, situated near Captain Organ asked.

"We've received a communication from a satellite that was just deployed. There's an unknown ship in the outer solar system," Captain Adam Organ replied to the woman. He looked over the massive amount of data his terminal was receiving before the real-time radar came up on the main monitor. "The ship's near Pluto," he said to Johnson and Valerii.

"Why didn't the communiqué go to the _Prometheus_?" Valerii asked. Captain Organ looked over the digital navigation chart that he had on one of his screens.

"Jupiter is blocking the signal from reaching the _Prometheus_," he replied. "Relaying the signal to the _Prometheus_." Moments later, the _Prometheus_ responded, saying that they would move into a better position. "The _Prometheus_ is telling us to either turn around and head for Earth, or to try and hide within the asteroid belt," Organ said.

"How far away from the Asteroid belt are we?" Flight Lieutenant Johnson asked.

"Approximately half an hour," Captain Organ replied.

"That's it then, we're heading for the Asteroid Belt," Johnson replied.

**_Poseidon _class ship _Solaris –_ Between Earth and Mars**

They had launched from a secret Air-Base Northwest of Calgary, Canada, no more than two hours ago after having gone through their flight checklists, when they had received the communiqué from the _Prometheus_, requesting that they make a jump out to Uranus to assist them with an unknown contact.

Commander Heidi Galtua couldn't believe that only a couple of hours after they had launched, the ship was going to go into a combat situation. She was both afraid and happy to be going back into combat. She was afraid that there'd be a repeat of the _Arawan_, or worse, but she was happy that she'd get to have some revenge on those who had killed most of her entire crew, and killed so many on Earth. It was only a minute after the _Solaris_ had received the communiqué that it entered into Hyperspace, where it remained for an entire minute, before emerging in the orbital path of Uranus, where the _Prometheus_ had requested. The radar officer immediately went to work, searching through their computer database for where the satellite _should_ be, and after a minute or two, he had found it and established a successful laser-point connection with it. The satellite was stationary between the orbits of Pluto and Neptune and from the data coming into their ship; the enemy ship was located just about an equal distance on the other side of the orbital path of Pluto.

"Unknown ship type mam. It's about three quarters of the size of the _Solaris_," the radar officer said. "We're detecting a smaller object which is flying towards Neptune. It's a bit smaller than an _Osprey_ shuttle."

"Deploy the _Tiger_ fighter wing, and an _Osprey_ to act as long range sensor platform," Commander Galtua ordered. This was a new tactic that the enemy was using. They had only encountered the large carrier class ships, and the smaller fighters and heavier fighters before, never a ship this size, and without a heavy escort of fighters. She had picked out their tactic, they were going to lure in one of the _Poseidon_ class ships, and then one of their larger Carriers was going to jump in right on top of them. No, she decided that she was going to rely on the stealth capabilities of the _Tiger_ fighters for this one.

**Colonial Ship _Adriatic_ – Near the orbital path of Pluto**

As soon as they had jumped into the system, they had seen the small DRADIS contact, and immediately investigated. From what they could tell, it seemed to be artificial in origin, and relatively small, about the size of a raptor. So far, they hadn't seen any Cylon devices quite like it, and they had their hopes up. The raptor was immediately deployed to scout out the object.

Half an hour later, the co-pilot of the _Adriatic_ announced that they had an anomaly on the DRADIS screen.

"There's an anomaly on DRADIS. It's disappearing and reappearing spontaneously," he said. "There's another one. And another one," he announced. He managed to count six of them between them disappearing and reappearing on the DRADIS.

"What could they be?" the pilot of the _Adriatic_ asked.

"Stealth ships?" one of the technicians suggested from the rear compartment.

"Or an attempt to jam our DRADIS," the military advisor said who _Galactica_ had put aboard the ship.

"We're putting weapons on standby," the pilot said. The _Adriatic_ was equipped with two large turrented rail guns, one on the left and one on the right side of the ship. Riley Tuoa began to operate the flight computer.

"What are you doing?" his co-pilot asked.

"Plotting some more jump coordinates, just in case we need to leave," Tuoa replied.

**_Tiger _031, launched from the _Solaris_ – Approaching unknown ship. **

They were cruising on momentum only, trying to maximise their stealth capability to unknown, and probably superior, sensors. Lieutenant Commander Jack Nicholson was the lead pilot of the _Tiger_ squadron, having survived the initial attack against their planet, and destroying the attempt by enemy fighters at entering their atmosphere. The enemy ship would soon be within visual range, and it was then that they would open up with their missile bays. Both his fighter, as well as three others in the wing of six were carrying at least one nuclear missile. They would destroy this ship before it knew what had hit them. Nicholson hoped that his co-pilot could feel the tension as well, that it wasn't just him who thought that the air could be cut with a knife. They continued cruising on for five minutes, when they could just make out the shape of a ship in front of them.

He looked up into the monitor, which was now showing the ship through one of the telescopic cameras mounted within the hull. They hadn't been able to zoom in on it before, as they were flying with passive sensors only, as active sensors could alert the enemy to their presence. He pressed a button, and a small laser unit on the top and on the bottom of the fighter emerged from the hull. One pointed towards Alpha Two, and the other Towards Alpha Three. The theory was the same as the communications satellite which had detected the enemy ship in the first place. Each small turrented laser located the laser receiving point on Alpha Two and Three.

"Orientate," Jack Nicholson commanded into the communications device. He then rotated the ship fifty degrees around their vector of forward velocity, so that now they were on the same orientation as the enemy ship. Alpha Two and Three almost followed immediately. A moment later, Alpha four, five and six spun around so that they were orientated with the ship. Jack Nicholson almost jumped out of his seat as he was startled when a voice came over the radio.

"Attention unknown ships. We are the Colonial Ship _Adriatic_. We come in the name of peace. We have minimal weapons and wish you no harm," the voice said.

**Colonial Ship _Adriatic_**

They had just sent the message over the airways, after guessing that the DRADIS anomalies might have been ships. They were waiting for a reply, confirming their guess that the anomalies were indeed ships. The entire crew of the _Adriatic_ had waited for ten minutes, watching the anomalies close ever closer and closer to their ship, until they were finally on top of them. Riley Tuoa was looking intensely out the front viewport of the_ Adriatic_ when he almost fell out of his seat as a number of black, wedge shaped craft flew over and under the ship, appearing almost out of nowhere.

"DRADIS Contact," Tuoa's co-pilot called out. He looked to the DRADIS and saw that a large ship had appeared out of no where directly ahead of them. "DRADIS Contact," his co-pilot called again. Another ship had appeared directly behind them. "They're both a little larger than the _Adriatic_," his co-pilot said.

"This is Commander Galtua of the Earth ship _Solaris. _ Stand down your weapons or you will be fired upon," a voice said coming over the radio. Riley Tuoa did just that, as he watched a black wedged fighter fly to the front of the _Adriatic_ and face them. "Any attempts at weapons fire or movement of the ship of any kind will result in us opening fire. Recall your other ship, deactivate your shields and prepare to be boarded," the voice commanded them over the radio.


	7. Chapter 7 The Dark Side,,,

Thanks for that JonnyG

**Author's Notes**

This chapter is called "The Dark Side…", the next one will be called "… Of Human Nature". I advise that there will be disturbing scenes in the next chapter. This story doesn't have the highest rating for no reason.

In my opinion, this one's pretty good.

**Chapter 7 – The Dark Side…**

**BBC News Report**

"The first three Anti Fighter Rail-Gun Batteries were installed in three cities around the World, Washington DC, Beijing, and Moscow today. The new batteries have been developed using the technologies discovered from 'The Great Ship', and are capable of launching shells into the upper atmosphere. Variants of the weapons are expected to be installed aboard the _Triton_, and later, the _Poseidon_ class ships, adding to their already massive firepower."

"The IAO today has announced that a quarter of it's resources have been freed up today, as relief efforts for some regions come to a close. Already, the IAO has announced that it's primary goal, after relief efforts, is poverty alleviation in Africa, claiming that the rest of the world needs to be brought up to the standards of the developed countries. Further donations are coming in from nations all over the world for the poverty alleviation effort, as well as further donations for the relief effort."

"NASA has announced that it has successfully completed plans for a new International Space Station, which will dwarf the current one in size and functionality. It is set to act as a docking station for the PDO's fleet, as well as all other ships which will be deployed into space, and serve as a research station and a weapons platform. Construction of the new space station is set to begin once NASA's facilities have been upgraded within the month."

"The person who is believed to be responsible for the launching of one of America's ICBM's towards China four days ago. So far, the woman responsible has not released her name, and there are no matches in any database from any nation on Earth," the reporter, D'Anna Biers, said while a picture of an Asian woman trying to cover her face showed on screen, being led under guard into an armoured car with press surrounding them

**Colonial Battlestar _Galactica_**

Admiral Adama, Colonel Tigh, Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace, Lee 'Apollo' Adama, President Billy Keikeya, and Tom Zarek were sitting in the situation room on the _Galactica_, discussing the appearance of the new ship, and their situation in general.

"The _Adriatic_ should be arriving at the Earth system within the week," Admiral Adama said. "But it will take them at least three weeks to get back to us and let us know what's happened, unless the Earth Civilization is equipped with better ships, and if they find us again."

"Didn't we give them our flight path?" Starbuck commented.

"Yes, but they could miss us. It will take them even longer if they have to come back along our predetermined path," Adama replied.

"We know that the Cylons know where Earth is. What do we do if we get there, and there's just a fragment of the civilization left," Zarek commented.

"Then we keep on doing what we've been doing for the last two and a half years, and wait until the _Pegasus_ returns," Apollo replied.

"If the _Pegasus_ returns. It was going back into Cylon occupied territory," Colonel Tigh replied.

"We haven't encountered heavy Cylon forces for months now. Only the occasional Basestar or raiders. They're up to something. They could even be waiting for us to reach Earth, and just wipe us out in one hit," President Billy Keikeya commented.

"Maybe we're starting to outrun them, and they can't bring resources out here fast enough," Starbuck said.

"They can jump a lot further than we can," Colonel Tigh replied.

"Yes, but we've come a long way in two years. Between us and the _Pegasus_, we've destroyed five Basestars, one of those large spherical ships, and a hell of a lot of Raiders. If they have gotten to Earth first, and Earth can put up a fight, that's some more Base Stars. Just say, they didn't expect us to get that many, they won't have many resources out here still able to search for us. They can bring up some more, but it'll take time for those reinforcements to get here from the Colonies, if that's where they are. If Earth has been wiped out, we keep jumping, maybe backtrack a bit, go around in circles some. We can lose the Cylons if they don't have many resources out here, and there's no more Cylons in the fleet," Starbuck explained. Admiral Adama nodded throughout her speech, indicating that he agreed. There was a silence throughout the room as everyone was thinking about what had just been said.

"The Cylons know that we have the map to Earth now. They'll expect us to go to Earth. The question is, do we go? Or do we go past Earth and try to lose them?" Lee Adama said.

"If we stop at Earth, and there are humans there, who can't defend themselves, we have no choice but to stay and defend them," Colonial Tigh said. "If they do have the technology to help us, then we could make a stand."

"We could leave our slowest ships with them, permitting they're willing to protect them, and just continuously jump onwards and lose the Cylons," Starbuck suggested. Everyone at the table looked at her in shock, but they knew that it was a viable option.

"I think we'll need to assess the situation first, but perhaps, when we do come across Earth, we don't send everything in there," President Billy Keikeya suggested to the conversation.

"We should jump past them," Adama said.

**_Osprey _class shuttle 062 – Earth Orbit**

They were now back in Earth's orbit, since a _Baleen_ class cargo ship, with a limited range on their hyperdrive, was dispatched to retrieve them, or more specifically, the representatives of the mining companies aboard their _Osprey_. They had dropped them off at the _Triton_ and gone back onto CAP duties until their rosters were over and done with in four hours. They had turned to the BBC News, and were watching that through the main monitor.

"The person who is believed to be responsible for the launching of one of America's ICBM's towards China four days ago. So far, the woman responsible has not released her name, and there are no matches in any database from any nation on Earth," came from the monitor. Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson sat in shock as he watched the monitor, as an image of Sharon Valerii played on it. He turned to look at her, but all he could see was the barrel of a gun pointed directly at his head. Before he knew what was going on, she had reached down and grabbed his sidearm, and was now pointing it at Captain Organ.

"Here's how it's going to work," she said.

**Colonial Ship _Adriatic_ – Outer Sol. System**

Riley Tuoa watched as the strange shaped shuttle craft came towards them. The _Adriatic_ was now surrounded by various types of fighters, and so far, they had been refused entry into the Solar System. A strange looking ship had emerged from some kind of unknown FTL travel, and two smaller ships which looked like shuttles, the ones which were approaching them now, had detached from the sides. They were a strange design, with two large engines jutting out from the side of the ship, and it looked to be a little larger than a Raptor.

Their Raptor had returned minutes ago and was inside their docking bay. The crew had reported that the object on DRADIS was a platform or satellite of some kind. They had finally found the people of the Thirteenth Tribe of Kobol, and so far they weren't exactly as Riley had thought that they would be, although most people of the Colonial Remnant had put the people of Earth up onto a pedestal. He had expected to be welcomed with open arms, as brothers. Instead, they were being held at gunpoint on the outer region of their system.

The fact that they had the capability to do that was what kept Tuoa happy. That they would be able to help them beat off the Cylons, that they could finally take a rest. For the last two and a half years, he hadn't done much else than pilot the _Adriatic_ along with his co-pilot. He had mingled with the passengers that were onboard, but it got limiting. He needed to get off of the ship and do something besides fly the ship and listen to the Fleet News Service.

For two years, they had lived in fear from a massive Cylon attack. Although that had never happened, everyone in the fleet knew that there was a possibility that the Cylons were herding them into the one place, so that they could destroy the last known humans in the galaxy with one swift blow, but somewhere deep down inside, he knew that everything was going to be alright, that that wouldn't happen.

The fact that Cylons could look like people now, down to their very blood, sweat and emotions still had people throughout the fleet scared when they had departed. Not too long ago, a Cylon agent had blown up the FTL engines of _The Rising Star_, crippling the ship from escaping from the next Cylon attack. Luckily, no Cylon attack came and the engines were repaired.

They had lost a couple of civilian ships with all hands because of Cylon attack, but for the most time, they had stayed one step ahead of the Cylons.

He snapped back to reality as he heard clanging sounds coming from the top of the ship. He got out of his seat, and moved to the deck above them, to where one of the airlocks was situated. A couple of people came with him, most of them technicians, and the military advisor from the _Galactica_. They stood around the ladder leading down from the airlock and looked up as sounds could be heard coming from beyond the airlock hatch.

The sounds finally stopped after a couple of minutes, and the light went green indicating that both sides of the airlock were pressurised. They opened the door and looked up, and the brief view that Riley Tuoa saw was that the Earth ship's airlock was larger than theirs, but they must have established a seal with the outer hull of the ship and enclosed their own airlock. Bright lights came down from the Earth ship, blinding him and the others.

"Move away from the ladder," a voice boomed from above them. They hesitantly complied and took a couple of steps backwards. A figure descended, a human figure, dressed in combat gear and with a weapon. He reminded Riley of the _Galactica's_ marines. If he wasn't light years from the _Galactica_, and he ignored minor details, like the differences between the weapons and combat fatigues, he could have sworn that it was one of _Galactica's_ marines. Another figure was right behind him, and then another, and then another. They formed a semi-circle around the base of the ladder, until someone dressed differently descended. One of the marines stepped aside and the woman approached the group of Colonials.

"Who here is in charge?" she asked harshly. Riley Tuoa stepped forward and offered his hand.

"I am. Riley Tuoa, pilot of the Colonial ship, the _Adriatic_," he said in his calmest and most confident voice. He was shocked as the woman in front of him just about dismissed all that he had said.

"I am Colonel Beda. What is your destination and purpose?" she asked almost immediately. He was taken back and had to find the correct words to continue.

"We're an exploratory vessel, and our ultimate destination is Earth," he replied to her. He saw the military advisor from Galactica nod his head at what Tuoa had just said. He saw another movement out of the corner of his eye, and didn't believe what he was seeing. One of the technicians had was raising a gun towards the Earth personnel. Before Riley Tuoa knew what was happening, he heard a shot fired which hit one of the marines. Another shot rang out before it hit Colonel Beda in front of him. He watched as Earth's marines reacted instantly, and in a hail of automatic gunfire, mowed the technician down.

Riley Tuoa had no thoughts, there was nothing going through his head. He barely recognised the marine in front of him, almost shouting in his face before it was too late. He felt a heavy fist go into his stomach, and he automatically bended over.

"Lie down on the ground and put your hands on your head!" the marine in front of him was shouting, with his weapon raised towards Riley. He was pushed violently down onto the ground, and was sure that his nose broke as it impacted the floor of the _Adriatic_. He felt the barrel of a gun placed firmly against the back of his head, and as he turned his head to the side, he could see more marines descending the ladder into their ship. He finally thought that the person with the gun must have been a Cylon, and how much he had gone and fracked up the first contact with Earth. He realised that Earth's marines were storming the ship, holding up everyone at gunpoint.

He couldn't discriminate between the noises around him, and after what seemed like an age, but was probably a few minutes, he was dragged to his feat, and his hands were bound behind him. He vaguely saw the barely recognisable shooter being pushed towards the ladder, his hands unbound and a gun pointed at his head and being told to climb.

"KILL HIM! HE'S A FRACKING CYLON!" He heard someone shout at the top of their lungs. He turned to see that it was his co-pilot, and that he received a very heavy backhand across the face for the outburst.


	8. Chapter 8 ,,,Of Human Nature

**Authors Notes: **Originally, I was going to have a very graphic interrogation/torture scene in this chapter, but honestly, I couldn't do it to the standards which I wanted to. Still a good read tho.

VERY nice little twists listed throughout this chapter. Esp. at the end. Thanks for the reviews everyone.. leave plenty more.

**Chapter 8 … Of Human Nature**

**_Osprey 062 – _Earth Orbit**

To say that Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson was confused was an understatement. He had just seen someone who he could swear was his weapons officer's identical twin on the BBC News Bulletin, and a few moments after that was shown on the monitor, he had a gun pointed to his head and Sharon Valerii was holding it.

"Organ. Get in the co-pilot's seat," he heard Valerii demand. He moved his head to turn and look at what was happening, but he instantly the gun barrel was jammed into his skull harder. "Don't move!" Valerii commanded with absolute authority. "Now!" She emphasised towards Captain Organ's direction. Sam Johnson looked out of the corner of his eye as he saw Captain Organ, their communications and navigation officer sit in the seat beside him.

"What's going on?" Organ asked Valerii, with his head facing the front of the cockpit.

"Shut up," she simply replied. "Johnson, steer head towards the far side of the moon. Maximum speed," she demanded after a moment. Johnson didn't respond, and it took a quick moment before he was turned in his chair, and Valerii was behind Captain Organ, gun barrel to the back of his head. "Do it, or I blow his brains out." Johnson slowly swivelled his chair so that it was facing the front of the _Osprey_ and changed their course so that they were heading towards the far side of the moon. "Maximum velocity," Valerii commanded. Johnson moved the throttle for the main engines up to maximum. "Once we reach the maximum velocity, I want you to shut off the engines and let us drift until we're almost on top of Earth's moon."

"This is the Poseidon class ship the _Chu-Jung_ to _Osprey 062_. You have veered off course. Please state your reasons and perform a course correction," a voice said over the radio after they had been drifting for five minutes.

"Tell them we're investigating the site of strange radar readings near the moon," Johnson heard Valerii say to Captain Organ. He turned his head to see that Valerii had gotten out of the way and was gesturing for Captain Organ to move back over to his station. Slowly, he got up and crossed the small distance to the Communication/Navigation station.

"We're getting strange radar readings from a location near the moon and we've deviated to investigate, over," Captain Organ replied into the radio. They waited for a few moments before the _Chu-Jung_ replied that they acknowledged. When they were asked if they wanted any fighter backup, they respectively declined, at the persuasion of Valerii's handgun.

They had been drifting for fifteen minutes, and Flight Lieutenant Johnson swore that if they didn't activate the engines soon, that they would impact on the moon. He told this to Valerii, who actually agreed with him.

"Bring us to a hover right above the moon's surface," Valerii replied. Once the _Osprey_ was hovering above the moon, Johnson saw Valerii tuck one of the handguns into the waist of her pants. She immediately pointed the handgun at Captain Organ. "If either one of you moves, I'll shoot him," she said, looking directly at him. She walked over to the communications station and started hitting keys on the computer mounted there, glancing up every three seconds or so to make sure that her aim was still trained on Captain Organ, and to make sure that neither of them was going to try anything.

"What's she doing?" Johnson asked to Organ.

"She's sending out a signal," Organ replied. It was just then that Valerii moved back from the terminal and trained both of her weapons on either one of them again.

"Lieutenant Johnson. I need you to take us to an elevation of one hundred metres, and fly North. I'll tell you when to stop," Valerii commanded while stepping forward to emphasise her point. He turned around in his seat, increased their velocity and raised the _Osprey_ to an elevation of one hundred metres.

They had breezed over the moon's surface for about five metres before Valerii ordered him to descend into the crater in front of them. From what Johnson could see once they had descended into the crater, this was no ordinary crater. Usually large craters had a lip around the rim, and were either a relatively smooth surface inside, or were littered with smaller craters. Not this one, this one had various, 'objects', sticking up from it's surface. "Land in the clearing in the centre," Valerii commanded. He didn't object as he piloted the craft slowly towards a circular clearing in the centre of the crater. He noticed that Valerii had gone back over to the communications station and was fiddling around with it some more. They slowly settled down onto the surface of the moon, and as soon as they did so, Valerii was manning her own station. Samuel Johnson noticed movement from the upper part of his vision, and he could see that the external telescopic cameras had been turned on, and were focusing in on an object in front of them. He watched, as what appeared to be a remarkably artificial looking rock, a bit larger than their own ship, opened up and two large mechanical walking machines came out of it. He was completely stunned when the robots in front of him began to bound across the moon's surface with an agility and fluidness only seen in living beings. He looked at their heads and noticed that they had a red slit, with a bright section moving from left to right, and then right to left across the front of it. He could easily recall where he had seen that before; on the enemy fighters that had attacked their world.

As Johnson looked around, he began to notice what the 'objects' sticking up out of the crater were. They were enemy fighters, covered in moon dust to disguise their appearance from above. He now recognised the 'rock' that the robots had come out of. It was one of their transport craft, the same type that had been intercepted trying to enter earth's orbit by a wing of _Falcons _and _Tigers_, as they had all been briefed about that and the new class of ship.

He saw Valerii open the rear hatch to the airlock, and the two robots walked into it. The rear hatch closed, and the airlock was pressurised. Johnson watched, half in awe, and half in pure fear as the two robots walked into their ship and stood behind Sharon Valerii.

"If either of you do so much as move, they'll shoot you," she said to them while putting her gun away. Johnson looked up to one of the robots, and then to Valerii, who was putting on one of the ship's space suits. Once she was done, she moved back to where she was standing between the two robots.

"Lieutenant Johnson. I saw you looking out of the cockpit. You should know that each one of those smaller objects are missile batteries. If you try to shoot us with the ship's weapons, we'll shoot you down. If you alert anyone to our presence, we'll shoot them down. We have the capacity to stop anything that you send at us," Valerii explained through the suit's external speakers. She moved towards the airlock and opened it. Both she and one of the robots entered into it, but the other remained at the doorway. Johnson watched as a device came out of the robot's arm, and assembled itself over it's hand. Once it was assembled, he noticed what it was; a chain gun. "Just so you know that I'm serious." Valerii said. The robot opened fire, shooting four rounds into Captain Organ as he sat in the co-pilot's chair, helpless. He got up to move towards him. "DON'T MOVE!" Valerii's voice boomed through the speakers of her space suit. "You have five minutes to get this ship out of our sight or we will destroy you," Valerii said. He watched as the robot moved into the airlock, as it was un-pressurised, and all three of them left.

He looked at Captain Organ's body. Blood was oozing out of the bullet wounds on the front of his clearly dead body. Automatically, he turned around in his chair, turned up the throttle on the engines and lifted the _Osprey_ off of the ground. If he could have both flown the _Osprey_ and shoot the weapons at the same time, he would have decimated as much of this hidden base as he could have. Instead, he put the throttle to maximum and shot out of the crater, barely missing the top of the rim.

**Half an Hour Later – International Affairs Organisation – Earth**

Leoben was an advisor for Dr. Bruce Miller. He was reorganising Miller's files, when he felt a slight vibration within his pocket. He pulled out a small metallic device which contained a red band at the front. The red band activated, sending a bright circle of light moving from left to right, and then backwards.

Instantly Leoben knew what he had to do. He sat down at his computer and loaded in one of the worms that he had previously created. It would go through every network that it could over the entire globe, on it's way, removing all traces of 'Sharon Valerii'

**One Hour Later – _Osprey 062_**

After leaving the hidden enemy base, Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson had just let the _Osprey_ drift for a while. He was certain that the _Chu-Jung_ would send a scouting party if they hadn't made contact in a while, but he didn't care. Beside him sat the dead corpse of his Communications and Navigations Officer, who he had gone through the academy with when they had both joined the PDO at the same time. He had just found out that for four years, their weapons officer, Sharon Valerii, lied and deceived each of them; that she was a traitor, one of the members of these 'Twelve Colonies of mankind' that the translations from 'The Great Ship' had talked about. He heard a ping from the radar screen, and could see five objects moving towards him from the direction of Earth. The IFF indicated that it was a _Baleen_ class cargo ship, as well a four _Falcon_ fighters. They had come to collect him at last.

**Two Days Later – Unknown Location – Presumably Earth**

Riley Tuoa had been locked in this room for what seemed like days now, given the bare minimal of food and water to drink, and nothing to look at. The walls, floor, ceiling, and even the desk were a dull grey colour. The only things that stood out were a small device located in one of the upper corners of the room, which he guessed was a surveillance device, and the metallic handle to the door to enter the room, which had only opened once since he had arrived here, and that was to give him a very small plate of food. His legs were chained to the metal poles of the desk, which was firmly fastened to the floor He knew that this was going to drive him insane, if it wasn't already. Thoughts had been playing over and over in his mind, until he had thought of everything there was to think about. The events that his brain was running over the most were the events that had taken place between the _Adriatic_ and here.

After he had been roughly placed in one of Earth's shuttles, they had flown towards an odd looking ship. There, the shuttles had attached themselves to the ship, and they had undergone a different type of FTL travel. Almost instantaneously, they were approaching a habitable world, with vast blue oceans covering most of the planet. Tuoa had no way of knowing if they were even in the same system or not, but he hoped so. As they approached the planet, he had seen what was most obviously a warship in orbit around the planet, and was surprised to see that it was no where near the size of the _Galactica_, and didn't even match up to the size of a Cylon Basestar, but it appeared to be the best that the people of the Thirteenth Colony had, unless their main warships were somewhere else.

The thing that surprised him the most however was once they had entered the planet's atmosphere. The technology that he could see which was being used on the surface of the world was much different than what he had expected. He had expected a much higher technological level of development of the cities of the Thirteenth Tribe. Instead he saw that all of their transport relied on ground-based vehicles, and that factories still poured chemicals into the atmosphere. There were large 'sky-scrapers' as they had been called on the Colonies, but not anywhere near the architectural level that he would have expected for a space-faring civilization.

He barely had time to take in the surroundings through the front view-panels of the cockpit before they landed at a facility which had very tight security. As soon as they had exited the shuttle, Riley Tuoa had seen guards everywhere. He also noticed a number of what appeared to be military vehicles parked outside the base, as well as what appeared to be a large missile launcher.

After that, he had been put in this room, and given one meal in two days. During that time, he had analysed everything he could remember seeing, and why the people of Earth were acting so hostile towards their brothers from the stars. Sure, a couple of their men had been shot, but that was by a Cylon. He realized that the people of the Thirteenth tribe wouldn't know what the Cylons were, but he should have a chance to explain it to someone.

Riley Tuoa awoke, knowing that he had fallen asleep on the desk, in a very uncomfortable position. He had no way of knowing how long he had been asleep in this place, as there was no way of telling. Once his vision cleared, he almost leapt backwards as he saw that there was someone else sitting on the other side of the table.

"I'm glad you're awake Mr. Tuoa," the person said, Tuoa not knowing how the other person knew his name. He looked up to the other man, who just stared back at him. The two just sat there, staring at each other for a long while, until the man pulled up something from his side of the table. Riley saw that it was a glass of water, and that it had been placed on the table just out of reach of his hands. "Your ship mates have all undergone this procedure already, Mr. Tuoa," the person said to him. "Even the person who killed Colonel Beda, although he went through a much more, testing, process."

"I'll tell you everything you need to know," Riley heard himself reply.

"Good, then let's start," the person replied while sitting back in his chair with an arrogant look on his face.

"The man who killed your Colonel Beda was a Cylon agent…" he started.

"…bent on the destruction of the entire human race, which includes your Twelve Colonies, and Earth," the person in front of him said while leaning forward. "We've heard all this from the other people of the ship, Mr. Tuoa. Now, how about you tell us something a little bit more informative."

"Like what?" Riley replied.

"How did your agents infiltrate this agency, as well as other agencies on this planet?" the person asked.

"What are you talking about?" Riley queried, confused.

"One month ago, your people launched an attack against this world, killing millions. You had the ability to shut down our fighters, and since then, at least one enemy agent has been caught trying to launch nukes towards our allies, and we know that there are more," the person said to him harshly.

"They're Cylons. That wasn't us," Tuoa replied.

"We have information which contradicts that," the person instantly replied to him before getting up and reaching for something on the floor. When Riley Tuoa saw what he put on the table, he cringed at the thought of the use of those instruments.

**International Affairs Organisation (IAO) Facility – Scotland**

Dr. Bruce Miller proceeded to the lower levels of the facility as fast as he could. He had just received word of what was occurring to the crew of an unknown ship which had appeared outside the solar system two days ago. He left the lift and proceeded towards the 'holding cells' which had just finished construction. He came to the door to the rooms and entered, and he saw a sight that would be with him for the rest of his life. Through uni-directional observation window, he could see the interrogator circling the person whose hands were restrained to the chair and table, blood streaming out of his mouth and nose, with lacerations all over his face, and heavy bruising around his wrists. The man's eyes were distant and lifeless, and there was no chance that he'd ever be able to talk for at least a day, probably more. Instantly, Dr. Miller stormed into the room and looked at the interrogator.

"Who ordered this?" he demanded. The interrogator was startled, but didn't reply. "WHO!" Dr. Miller demanded.

"I was just following orders," the interrogator replied.

"Whose Orders?" Dr. Miller questioned, again.

"Dr. MacGuwyre," he simply replied. Dr Miller could feel himself just shake his head and clench his fists.

"Get out," he simply ordered to the interrogator.

**Research Vessel _Copenhagen_ – Unknown Location.**

Dr. Wotresser awoke to the sounds of metal pounding on metal and a large number of hydraulics working. He looked out of his cell to see six of the large metallic robots running past his cell at full speed. It wasn't long until the blonde haired woman, and the dark skinned man named Simon came to the cell and opened it.

"You're coming with us," the blonde haired woman said while the one called Simon came into the cell and picked Dr. Wotresser up off of the floor. Immediately, he dragged Dr. Wotresser out of the cell and they began to move to the rear of the ship. They made their way to the airlock, occasionally moving to the side when one of the robots needed to run through the corridor. It was obvious that they were all in distress about something, although what that was, Dr. Wotresser couldn't fathom. They arrived at the airlock, and Dr. Wotresser saw that it was already open and that a craft was attached to the other side. He was shoved towards the airlock after the blonde haired woman had entered, Simon directly behind him. It was there that he saw former Commander Doral was already in the ship and sitting in some kind of chair at the front of the ship. As soon as they were aboard, two mechanical robots boarded with them and the airlock was closed. The robots stood to attention on either side of the ship, and seemingly deactivated, save for their glowing red visor for an eye.

Immediately, he could feel the ship jerk upwards and away from the _Copenhagen_. It was then that he saw the reason for his captor's distress. Around them, were swarms of his captor's crescent shaped fighters, and they were shooting at another kind of fighter, a narrow elongated tri-winged fighter that Dr. Wotresser saw ­go flying past their ship, just barely missing it with it's stream of ammunition. He looked out of the front visor of the craft some more, and could see the sheer number of fighters on both sides of the battle, and the sheer viciousness of the fighters.

"Stand-by for FTL jump in 5… 4..," Aaron Doral started, before the ship was violently jerked to the side, sending Dr. Wotresser careening into one of the walls. After he had picked himself up off of the floor, he could see his captor's talking between each other.

"They took out our FTL drives. We're now heading away from the battle," Doral said, who appeared to be flying the ship. Wotresser looked out of the front visor of the ship and could see that at least three fighters had joined his ship as escort. They had been flying dead straight, at what he guessed was their maximum speed for at least two minutes when one of the enemy fighters exploded in a ball of fire. Immediately, he saw that their own ship spun around an started firing. On closer inspection, he could see an entire swarm of the elongated tri-winged fighters were approaching them like a swarm of bees, dodging the ammunition being hurled towards them by the shuttle he was occupying. He was sure then that he was dead, that the elongated fighters would blow them out of the sky, or out of the void, so to speak. However, he saw that a number of the fighters surged forward and overpassed the ship. Almost instantly, he was knocked to the floor again as the ship was violently shaken. He picked himself up off of the floor again and looked out of the front visor and saw that the ship was spinning uncontrollably.

"They shot out our engines," Doral said to the other humans with him. He watched as two other kinds of ship surged forward out of the swarm of elongated fighters. These looked more like shuttle craft, and he watched as they manoeuvred so that they were above and below the ship he was currently being held in. He suddenly ducked down as he heard a loud clanking sound from above, and then from below. He waited about five minutes before he could see that their ship was re-orientating itself.

"They've locked onto our hull and are towing us towards their fleet," Simon said. Suddenly, the lights aboard the ship went out and he could hear the power plant of the ship turning itself off.

"What's happened?" he heard the blonde haired woman ask.

"They've shut down all of our systems except for life-support," he heard Doral reply.

"That's impossible. How can they do that?" he heard the blonde haired woman reply. They were paying no attention at all to him, which for now, Dr. Wotresser decided was a good thing.

Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Wotresser was staring out the front visor of the craft with his jaw agape at the sight he was seeing. They were approaching a mammoth of a ship, which looked to be a warship. He now knew that Earth hadn't developed new fighters while he had been kept captive, as Earth currently didn't have the capability to construct such a massive ship. He could see that there were other large ships out there as well, and as far as he could count, there were another two similar ships to the one that they were approaching in the fleet in front of him. They were all elongated in shape, one of them looking sleek, the other two being more powerful looking. They all had two large rectangular pods extending out the side, and as they approached the ship in front of them, he could see what appeared to be a runway within the pods. He heard loud clanking from the bottom of the ship, and soon he saw the craft that had attached to their bottom flying in front of them and rotating itself so that it was orientated the same way as it's Mothership.

Dr. Wotresser had never thought that he would see anything such as this in his entire life. He had seen schematics of the _Triton_, but from what he could tell, the ship in front of him dwarfed the _Triton_ at least by a factor of ten. They entered the pod, and slowly, their ship was set down on a rectangular pad of metal. They then began to sink down into the floor of the pod, and soon enough, he could see that they were underneath it in what appeared to be a futuristic hangar bay. He also noticed what appeared to be marines forming a tight circle around their ship, weapons raised. It was then that he noticed that the mechanical robots had activated and were facing the rear of the ship.

They waited for what seemed like half an hour, but in reality was in fact five minutes before they could hear sounds on the outer hull of the ship. Suddenly, a circular device dropped down from the ceiling and bounced on the ground. He knew what that was, it may have been from a different race, but they had grenades on Earth as well. He took cover, but there was no explosion and he looked at the still grenade and could see that gas was coming out of it. He had covered his mouth, but it didn't do much as soon his body hit the floor of the Cylon Heavy Raider as he was knocked unconscious by the gas.

**Colonial Battlestar**

As soon as his marine team had determined that the knockout gas would have had it's effect on any human-model Cylons within the raider, they began work on lowering the boarding ramp. The raptor was still clamped to the top of the Heavy Raider and they would detach it after they had captured the occupants within. It was what they had used to drop the knockout grenade into the ship. They had decided to capture the Heavy Raider instead of destroy it, as they had seen that it had an escort of raiders and that it was fleeing the battle by conventional means, without FTL.

Three marines, armed with laser cutting torches began to cut away the ramp, and within five minutes, they were done. They had set up a barricade behind the Heavy Raider, with marines waiting behind it. They had orders to shoot above the floor, so that they wouldn't hit any of the unconscious human-cylon models. As soon as the hatch dropped off of the Heavy Raider, the line of marines opened fire, littering the insides of the Heavy Raider with ammunition. After a minute of sustained firing, they stopped. They saw no red-eyes of any mechanical cylon models moving, and after a group of marines had successfully approached the rear of the Heavy Raider, without being fired upon, they deemed it safe.

"Inform the commanders of the Battlestar _Rycon_ and the Battlestar _Cerebus_ that we've secured the Heavy Raider and are moving their occupants to the brig," Commander Fisk, commander of the Battlestar _Pegasus_ said to his second in command as they watched the marines board the Heavy Raider.


	9. Chapter 09 Exploration

Thanks for the reviews everyone. More comments down the bottom.

**Chapter 9 – Exploration**

**One Week Later**

**BBC News – Earth**

"Finally, a methodology has been developed on how to mine asteroids within the asteroid belt, without using a large amount of resources. Details of the plans will be released later, after the mining companies with licences from the PDO have successfully tried out their new method. Currently, five modified _Osprey_ class ships are being used in exploratory missions, scanning asteroids with ground-penetrating radar and bringing samples home for analysts to study. So far, after only a day of scouting, four large asteroids have been found with deposits of nickel, iron, and titanium within them."

"After a couple of modifications, NUMA is going to put it's _Manta _all purpose underwater vehicle through it's paces today in the first ever trial of a drop from the upper atmosphere. For those unfamiliar with the _Manta_, it is a modified _Osprey_ class shuttle designed to operate under water, reaching the depths. It will be used by NUMA and various other companies around the globe to build various underwater habitats, research stations, and mining stations on the bottom of the ocean. The construction of these underwater habitats is expected to greatly aid the refugee crisis our world is now facing. NUMA's chief engineer, Albert Giordino, today commented that commented that the engines of the _Manta_ had to be moved, as they would break off upon impact into the ocean. The wings that now house the _Manta's_ engines can slide to the rear of the craft, and the engines can be tucked behind the main chassis of the hull… There was a great surprise today as the PDO announced, upon successful completion of the atmospheric drop, that it would essentially, buy the plans of the _Manta_ off of NUMA, again, and that they would be used to construct a facility whose location is classified."

"Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson is still being held in custody over the murder of his two crew-mates, a Captain David Organ, and a Lieutenant Smithson, both serving with Lieutenant Johnson at the time. The whereabouts of Lieutenant Smithson's body has yet to be found, but it is believed that the Asian woman was jettisoned out of the airlock of the _Osprey_ class shuttle that all member parties were occupying. No trace of an enemy base on the far side of the moon has been found as of yet, which Lieutenant Johnson swears is there. Doubts are being cast on his sanity, and prosecutors are worried that he may plea on insanity charges."

"The PDO has stated today that a new kind of ship is in the works, designed as an all-purpose shuttle craft/cargo ship and heavy fighter. They stated today that once the designs are completed and auctioned off, that the mining companies will be the heaviest user of the new kind of ship. As of yet, it has no designation."

"Pieces have already been assembled for the new International Space Station, with the Russian and Chinese Space programs aiding the construction greatly. NASA has stated today, with the exponential growth of factories and workshops producing new technologies, that the first pieces of the new space station are expected to be put into orbit within the month."

"Many major cities around the globe are now investing in large, anti-fighter batteries which the PDO along with the IAO have managed to fine tune and produce. The large batteries require enormous amounts of power, and therefore most cities are restricted to one battery because of power requirements. The batteries are based around the rail-gun technology which has been developed for the space superiority fighters, as well as _Poseidon _class cruisers and the _Triton_ class battleships, except it is much bigger. Instead of hurling small explosive rounds into the air, these rail-gun batteries have the ability to hurl an explosive round, similar to those used in the main cannons of today's modern warships, into the upper atmosphere. Research is being done into advanced tracking systems, so that these batteries could someday be used to intercept enemy missiles fired at cities from orbit."

"The first attempt at integrating pre-space revolution technology and post-space revolution technology today ended in a disaster as American scientists tried to modify a Joint Strike Fighter into an orbital space superiority fighter. The modified powerplant and engine of the fighter exploded as soon as the engine was pushed to maximum thrust, killing the pilot and completely destroying the craft. American Officials have stated that if there is the ability to convert today's Air-Force into a space faring force, the planet would be a lot safer as the number of fighters capable of defending the planet from orbit would increase by orders of magnitude. More attempts by Australian, French, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, South African and Indonesian research teams are expected, and the PDO is hoping that one of them will be successful."

"Attempts are being made at repairing and powering up "The Great Ship", the object that created the space-age revolution here on Earth. It has been stated by the PDO that if they are successful in powering up the ship, and then add more weapons systems to it, it will greatly increase Earth's military power in space for defence, and could then free up the _Triton_ for offensive purposes. They have stated that it will not be an easy accomplishment, but it may be possible within the next year or two."

**_Albatross _Class Fighter/Bomber – Near Asteroid 043-221 – Asteroid Belt – Sol. System**

Flight Lieutenant Jinko Arcarna and his co-pilot Flight Lieutenant Kesen Erwitke had their _Albatross_ class fighter/bomber in a stable position facing an asteroid with the designation of 043-221. They were being paid, as well as PDO, by BHP Billiton and Newmont Mines for an exploratory mission into the asteroid belt. Since neither company had any ships constructed for them as of yet, they were contracting the PDO's ships to do it for them. As a payment, the PDO was getting much cheaper metals from both companies, which was speeding up production of fighters and shuttles.

"_Albatross 013_, this is _Osprey 106_. Targeting data uploaded now," a voice said over the radio. A series of data bursts were sent to the _Albatross_ class shuttle over a temporary network uplink that had been established between itself and a nearby _Osprey_. There were four _Ospreys_ in the area, as well as three _Baleen_ class shuttles, and one other _Albatross _bomber.

The data that was transmitted came up as targeting data on the _Albatross_'s main computer, showing a location on asteroid 043-221.

"_Albatross 013_ to all surrounding ships. Clear the area around asteroid 043-221, over," Flight Lieutenant Arcarna said into the radio. They waited to hear an 'all clear' from the surrounding ships before arming their weapons. The modified _Osprey_ shuttles were using a special form of ground penetrating radar to determine what the asteroids were made of. Once they had found a suitable asteroid, they would signal to one of the _Albatross_ bombers and the bomber would blow a chunk out of the asteroid. The _Baleen_ class shuttles would then come in, open up their hatches and use remotely controlled grappling hooks to reel in a section of the asteroid small enough to take back to Earth for testing.

Lieutenant Jinko hit the fire button on his controls, and the forward bay on the _Albatross_ opened up. A missile was manoeuvred into the bay from it's anterior storage(forwards in relation to the ship). A series of small jets located on the _Albatross_ fired, sending the missile out of the bay and below the craft. The main drive of the missile ignited and the Jinko and Kesen watched the missile go towards the Asteroid. It hit the asteroid right on the target, and after the debris had cleared, they saw several adequate sized pieces ready for sampling.

**Colonial Battlestar**

Dr. Wotresser awoke on a cold, metallic surface, with cramps all over his body. For some reason he could feel pain in his back and his shoulders, but he couldn't recall how they had been brought about. He knew that he was still on the _Copenhagen_, locked in the makeshift cell that the enemy had made for him. As more of his senses returned, he jolted upright after realising that he wasn't on the _Copenhagen _anymore; the sounds of the ship were different. He didn't know that he had become so accustomed to the sounds aboard the _Copenhagen _while the enemy was occupying it, but his rational thought knew that after spending what must have been at least two weeks in the dark, with no other stimuli, that he would have quickly become accustomed to those sounds.

His vision cleared, and as he looked around, he could see that he was now in a ready made cell, with two guards in what appeared to be a marine get-up standing outside the cell. His memory came back to him, and he remembered the battle between the enemy and the unknown ships, and how their craft had been captured and brought aboard one of the new people's motherships.

He watched as one of the guards picked up a corded phone and spoke into it. Wotresser tried to work out what he was saying, but the person was too far away. It was then that Dr. Wotresser tried to get up and walk to the bars, but tripped over. He looked down at his feet and could see that his ankles were cuffed together and tethered to a pin in the middle of the floor by what appeared to be a steel cable. He then noticed that his hands were also cuffed, but they weren't tethered to the floor like his feet.

It was then that a rather large, rugged looking man walked into the holding room and looked at Wotresser. Wotresser watched as, with only a look, he had ordered the guards to open the door to the bars that Wotresser was being held in.

"Who are you people?" Wotresser asked. The man just did not reply. He stepped into the cell and looked very closely at Wotresser's face. "Where am I? And where did you come from?" Wotresser added.

"You're on the Battlestar _Cerebus_, and your other friends have been split up between the _Pegasus _and the _Rycon_," the man replied.

"What are those?" Wotresser asked again. The man simply ignored him and continued to stare at his face.

"I'm surprised you can't feel it," the man said to Wotresser.

"Feel what? The pain in my back and shoulders? I can feel that alright," Wotresser replied.

"Mere side affects of the knockout gas we subdued you with," the man replied almost shrugging it off. "I'm talking about up here," the man said while tapping Wotresser's temple.

"What are you talking about?" Wotresser queried.

"We've set up an electromagnetic field around this cell, and we're pouring ionised radiation into here. It's completely harmless to humans, but for Cylons? Well then… Soon, the silica pathways within your body will begin to degrade. The interference is to disrupt communications between you and your friends on the other Battlestars. It's not perfect, but hopefully it should stop you from transferring to another body once the radiation has had it's full effect and you die, permanently," the large man said in front of him, looking him directly in the face.

"For one thing, ionised radiation won't harm me. It only affects synthetic materials," Wotresser replied. He was lucky that he was a physicist and knew something about the universe and it's basic properties. The man in front of him looked to be taken aback about something.

"You can stop trying with the ruse. We know you are a Cylon. You were aboard the Heavy Raider with the other five Cylons," the man stated.

"What's a Cylon?" Wotresser asked. "Those people in the ship? Were they Cylons? I'm not with them. I was their prisoner," Wotresser replied. Suddenly Wotresser's head was knocked sideways as the man in front of him hooked him across the jaw.

"Tell me what you know of the _Galactica_ and the rest of the fleet. Are they still alive? Their whereabouts?" the man said to him.

"I don't know of any _Galactica_ or Fleet," Wotresser replied. The man replied by giving Wotresser a very strong punch in the stomach.

**_Falcon_ 'Red' Flight Wing. 2000km South-West of Chicago **

Flying officer Henry O'Connell could never get over the feeling of dread that he now had in his stomach. He was originally from Australia, but had spent seven years of his life living in the United States. Over the last couple of days, he had been flying escort for a wing of _Albatross_ class fighters/bombers, whose mission was to bomb the crap out of Chicago's CBD. Ever since a C-601 _Baleen_ class cargo ship had been shot down over the city, intelligence gathered had said that there must have been survivors from the ship that had crashed into the city, the same ship that Henry had shot down himself. They didn't know how their enemy was able to survive the radiation within the city, but they were doing it, and shooting down anything that came over them. Every single time they flew over they got to identify the location of another missile battery; because it fired at them. Every single time, they would go on a bombing run designed to level the entire area around the previous missile battery, and another one would fire at them. The PDO and IAO had no idea how they were moving about the city so fast, no vehicles worked, and the position of their wrecked ship hadn't changed at all.

Originally, Henry O'Connell thought that the _Albatross_ bombers would be slow craft, but he was greatly mistaken. They were able to keep up with their _Falcons_ the entire way. It was a good thing too, as they needed the speed to surprise the enemy.

They were coming in from the South West this time, very low to the ground not even fifteen metres off of the ground. The new missile battery was located on the outskirts of Chicago's CBD, and they were going to hit it at full speed.

Twenty minutes later Henry could see the first signs of Chicago's outer suburbs coming up on the horizon. Before he knew it, they were flying over the outskirts. The _Osprey_ class shuttle in front of them instantly shot up vertically. It would climb to an altitude of two kilometres, pull back to a distance, and record the location of the next missile battery.

O'Connell could see the target coming up on his targeting computer, and he slightly pulled up on the nose of the _Falcon _fighter.

"Red Wing, scattered Formation. Shut down all networked systems," he ordered into the radio. The other twelve _Falcon_ fighters in his wing would form a V shaped pattern with O'Connell at the apex of the V, in the front. The altitudes and positions within the V would be scattered. It had been discovered that either in an atmosphere, or in space, this formation was the best for shooting down missiles coming at the fighters head on. The _Albatross_ craft would be in the centre of the V, surrounded by the _Falcon_ fighters.

He checked his targeting computer and could see that they were now ten kilometres away from the target. Suddenly a wailing noise started to come from the computer in front of him, indicating that enemy missiles had been launched. He squinted out of the front of the cockpit and could see the guided projectiles approaching.

"Red Wing, open fire," he commanded into the radio. Suddenly, streams of rail-gun rounds were screaming towards the three missiles that had been fired. It took a moment for the pilot's to adjust their aims, but eventually the missiles were destroyed. "Maximum throttle and let the _Albatrosses_ do their work." Henry pushed the throttle to maximum, without engaging the third engine on his fighter and he surged forward. He began to pull the nose of the fighter up so that he wouldn't crash into the ruins of a skyscraper in the heart of Chicago's CBD. Moments later, he could hear the evidence of the south-west portion of Chicago's outer CBD being carpet bombed as fifty bombs were dropped on the area from just two _Albatross_ fighter/bombers.

Before he knew it, it was all over and they were heading out over the Great Lakes. A radio announcement had come from the _Osprey_ which was now heading away from Chicago in the opposite direction, saying that no more missile launches had been detected.

"We _might_ have got them this time," the weapons officer of the _Osprey_ said over the radio.

**Poseidon Class Ship _Solaris_ – Earth Orbit. **

Commander Heidi Galtua had now been fully acquainted with her new command, the _Solaris_. She had been both disappointed and surprised that the enemy had not attacked again. She wanted to seek the revenge of her former shipmates, but was surprised that no more attacks had come. If they wanted to completely wipe out Earth, which she suspected they did, a more continuous stream of attacks would be needed. Instead, they sent a couple of what appeared to be shuttle craft escorted by fighters, and that was weeks ago; since then, nothing.

The lack of enemy craft hadn't kept her and her crew unoccupied though. They were getting ready to descend into the upper atmosphere to test NUMA's new _Manta_ craft, a derivative of the _Osprey_ class shuttle.

They were in the upper stratosphere now, their shields deactivated. She knew that they were a sitting duck now if the enemy suddenly jumped in and attacked, but she knew that they could get out of the stratosphere quick enough. She couldn't activate her shields within the stratosphere because it would ignite the air around the ship and cause a large deal of environmental damage. She ordered them to descend, and immediately it was carried out. She watched the external monitors as a series of small rotational jets slid out from their armoured compartments in the side of the ship. They were the same jets used in the _Osprey_ class fighter. A number of hatches withdrew to reveal a large number of slightly bigger VTOL jets lining the side of the craft.

"Test and spin up the VTOL turbines," Commander Galtua ordered. Immediately, a number of intake fans on the front and bottom of the ship were revealed after thick armoured plating slid away. She watched on the monitor as the large fans began to spin, drawing in the very thin atmosphere at this height and pumping it through the VTOL jets.

They slowly descended until Galtua saw on the monitor that they were at the altitude which they had agreed to drop the _Manta_ from. It was the upper atmosphere, the lower stratosphere. Apparently, the _Manta_ had been built so that it could survive a drop from orbit, but they weren't too keen to test that out yet.

**_Manta 001 – Solaris_ landing Bay 02.**

Robert Frankfurt and Charlie McCliffe were sitting in the cockpit of the new_ Manta_ craft. So far, there had only been five constructed, but this was the first test of a drop from high altitude into the ocean. They could see from the number of external cameras built into the hull of the _Manta_ that they were over the Pacific Ocean and descending slowly. The top of their craft was attached to an electromagnetic rail system. The rail was now extending out beyond the outer edges of the hangar. They looked across to the technicians in the control booth, which were on the other side of the ship-sized airlock and gave them a thumbs up. Slowly, the _Manta_ began to move forward along the rail.

They reached the end of the rail and began to go over their checklist. The VTOL engines were working, the two rotational turbine engines were working. The new mechanism to move the jet engines behind the main chassis of the hull was working. They had no hull breaches of any kind, and all electrical equipment was working. They both checked their triple harnesses, and made sure that they were strapped into their seats properly.

"_Manta 001_ to _Solaris _control. We are showing all systems green and ready to go," Frankfurt said into the radio.

"Rodger that _Manta 001_. Prepare for drop in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Drop," the control officer said. Instantly, the _Manta_ was released from the electromagnet and began it's free fall. McCliffe began to manoeuvre the craft so that they were in an optimal entry vector – the nose pointing straight down and to be as vertical as possible.

They could now begin to see the Earth approaching them as they picked up speed.

"You know, if this doesn't work, we're both dead," Frankfurt said to McCliffe. McCliffe just nodded and continued manoeuvring.

Frankfurt was scared out of his pants as he could now see the ocean approaching their cockpit at a speed that was far too fast for him. He wasn't comforted that the entire ship had been made out of titanium, and that it was reinforced by an order of magnitude from the original _Osprey_ design. He did take comfort in firing the two large rotational turbines as hard as they would go for almost a full thirty seconds so that both of the pilots wouldn't be killed on impact. After that was accomplished, he hit the button to put the engines behind the craft and he kissed his ass goodbye.

"Altitude?" McCliffe asked.

"One thousand metres," Frankfurt replied after looking at the altimeter.

"Closing visor now," McCliffe replied. Immediately after he said that, a metal visor began to move across the glass in the 'cockpit' of the _Manta_, and it was to make sure that the ten times reinforced glass didn't shatter on impact.

Now, he just waited. They couldn't look at the monitor which was connected to the outer cameras, as reinforced shutters had been locked in place over all of the cameras, to make sure that those too, didn't shatter.

"Five, four, three,' Henry counted off of the altimeter as they descended one hundred metres every second, "two, one…"

Instantly, they were both jerked forward as their _Manta_ craft hit the water, their harnesses being the only thing preventing them from splattering on the forward sections of the craft. Frankfurt instantly felt dizzy and light headed as his brain was literally pushed forward against his skull, despite the harnesses which were put over their head to prevent them from breaking their necks.

"Opening visor now," McCliffe said. Frankfurt went to work unstrapping himself from the majority of the harnesses and began doing system checks on the craft.

"This is _Manta 001_ to the _Solaris_. Drop successful. Apart from a number of cameras which are non-operational and a small leak in the forward section of the hull, everything else went smoothly. I would like to report that we are already at a depth of five hundred metres and are still descending at a rate of half a metre per second," McCliffe said into the radio.

**Five Hours Later**

**Undesignated Ship Class – Orbit of Europa, Moon of Jupiter. **

Flying Officer Steven McDonaldson was one of a few who was aware of one of the many secret projects of the Planetary Defence Organisation, and today he was participating in two of them. A trio of ships, the same type as his, were orbiting one of the many moons of Jupiter: Europa, an ice covered world believed to have a substantial ocean of water below it's icy surface. The three ships were in the formation of a small equilateral triangle with the _Poseidon_ class ship _Odyssey_ nearby. They had come out here immediately following the successful launch of the _Manta_ class shuttle.

The prototype ships were very large, in terms of the size of a fighter/bomber/shuttle craft. They had a pointed nose, much like modern aircraft. The rest of the ship's main section of the chassis was basically a laterally compressed rectangle. Where the nose of the ship met the main body of the ship was shielded by two large rectangular extensions pointing anteriorly (front), which appeared to have large weapons attached to the end of them. Two rectangular extensions also protruded from the rear of the ship, each containing four 'relatively' small engines on each face of the protrusion, and one 'relatively' large engine housed within each protrusion. Two large wings could be rotated outwards to help stabilise the craft in an atmosphere, otherwise, they were folded backwards at an angle parallel to the length of the ship, and covered the rear intrusion created by the engine housings. Another large 'plate' seemed to cover each side of the ship, running from the start of the front of the protrustions, to just before the engine housing, and a large weapon seemed to be attached to the plate. The vehicle was twenty-five metres in length, was ten metres wide, had a seventeen metre wingspan when the wings were extended, and was four metres high and needed a crew of sixteen to twenty to operate properly.

McDonaldson had no idea what to call this ship. It wasn't a frigate, it wasn't a bomber, and it certainly wasn't a fighter. He was interested to know what the PDO would call this ship once they had a fully, working, proper model. So far, the three craft in orbit around Europa were only prototypes.

"All ships, prepare for test fire," McDonaldson heard over the radio, coming from the _Odyssey_. He looked to their weapons officer, who hit the switch for the main guns to aim onto their predesignated target. He heard a loud clanking sound, and then humming as the main weapons of the ship began to move.

The two 'plates' on the side of the ship were released, and they began to pivot around their centre until they were facing downwards on an angle of negative seventy degrees. These plates now looked more like arms as they protruded a long distance below the ship, and above the ship.

"This is X8-002, weapons prepared," McDonaldson saw the communications officer say into the radio. After a moment, they received the transmission from the _Odyssey_ that all three ships had their primary weapons armed.

"X8-001, fire," they heard the _Odyssey_ command over the speakers. They watched the monitor, as the video feed was relayed to them via an _Osprey_ class shuttle. The two large weapons on the end of the plates discharged, and almost ten seconds later, there was a large impact on the surface of Europa. They could see, via the camera relay from the _Osprey_, large amounts of debris being thrown away from the impact site. "X8-002, fire," the voice said over the speakers exactly one minute and thirty seconds later. McDonaldson felt the ship vibrate as two rounds were shot out of their own weapons. He watched the monitor as they impacted in the same place as X8-001's weapons had. The weapons that were attached to the plates were two large rail-gun cannons, similar to the design that had been created for 'rail-gun artillery' on Earth, to be placed on the ground around cities. They launched two large shells at incredible speed towards their designated target. At this point, the surface of Europa was one thousand kilometres away, and it was only taking approximately ten seconds for the shells to reach their target, meaning that the shells were travelling at one hundred kilometres per second. There was one downside however, a small nuclear-fusion plant was onboard the X8's, and because of the large power requirement to launch a shell at that velocity, it took two and a half minutes to re-power one weapon, five for both.

After the three ships had fired ten rounds between them, an order was sent to cease fire while an _Osprey_ class shuttle investigated the surface. They waited perhaps five minutes before hearing anything.

"Well _Odyssey_ command, you'll be glad to know that there is an ocean underneath the ice on Europa, the X8's managed to blast through the covering ice sheet. Now, all we need is a couple of dozen _Mantas_ and we're ready to go, over," the voice said from the _Osprey_ class shuttle.

"_Odyssey_ command to _X8-002_, prepare automated probe for launch," the voice commanded over the radio. Immediately, the communications officer relayed the order to the weapons control to switch the modules. Momentarily, the front section of the left side's large weapon pointing towards the moon started to retract. Once it was fully retracted, only about half of the length of the 'plate' which had rotated downwards was left. The weapons technicians hooked up an electromagnet which was connected to a rail-system on the ceiling and removed the weapon once the small chamber it was now contained in had been pressurised. The weapon was at least six metres long and had approximately a one metre radius, and weighed two tonnes on it's own, without the launching mechanism which was permanently attached to the ship. They replaced the weapon with a large, football shaped object almost as big as a person.

"Probe in firing position," McDonaldson heard over the speakers.

"Firing Europa Sea Probe 1 at one quarter velocity, now," he heard the Weapons officer say into the communications system. This time, the monitor showed the large football shaped object exit the now shortened extension pointing towards the moon's surface, and then go flying towards the point that they had fired at before.

"This is _Osprey_ _121_, Europa Sea Probe 1 has successfully entered the ocean, over," he heard over the speakers. That concluded their part of the mission, and the main weapon was put back into place, the extensions rotated up so that their length was parallel with the length of the ship, and the three X8 ships turned and started heading back towards the _Odyssey_ to accompany it on the Hyperjump back to Earth orbit.

At that point in time, it finally came to McDonaldson what their ships were finally a mixture between, a bomber, and artillery.

A new ship's been created… the PDO's trying to integrate space-tech into current (2063) tech… Dr. Wotresser is thought to be a Cylon… The _Manta_ is now fully operational… The PDO is interested in the ocean underneath Europa… the IAO and PDO are torturing Colonial Prisoners, thinking that they're 'the enemy'… the PDO's trying to resurrect 'The Great Ship'… What is 'The Great Ship' exactly? It's got shields which were reverse-engineered by Earth (into not very good shields), but the Colonials don't? Is it a Colonial ship, or another kind of ship?... They're completely carpet-bombing Chicago… D'Anna Biers (A Cylon) is the main global reporter, reporting on all Space-Revolution stuff… and the Cylon's haven't shown up to attack earth in (Roughly) one and a half months since their initial attack with ONE base star….

What about the Cylon base on the moon? What about Sam Johnson? What are the Cylons doing? What's the Galactica and Fleet doing? What's happened to Gaius Baltar, President Roslin, and a whole bunch of other characters from BSG? That will be answered in the next couple of chapters…

BUT

I've got a tonne of uni assignments to do, and exams are coming up soon (uni's finished by 26 November), so there will not be MANY updates between now and then (maybe one or two, if I can manage it), so, it'll be a bit of a wait to find out what's going to happen.

Try to leave plenty of reviews though…

Cheers

Aussie


	10. Chapter 10 Secret Weapons

**Authors Notes**

Next chapter will be coming soon. Just so you know, have created basic 3d models of Earth's ships. These are viewable at the link which is on my profile, so ya can get a good look at em.

Bad news tho….

As soon as uni finishes, I'm going to a mine for 3 weeks. Coming back on about the 22nd of December. Staying for Xmas and New Years, then going back to the mine after that for about 10 days.. don't know if I'll get the time to work on the story out there. Will work on it massively once back in Jan. Have got lots of good ideas.

Thnx

Aussie

**Chapter 10 – Secret Weapons**

He never thought that he'd be sitting inside a cell aboard the _Triton_, and he had never thought that what had occurred, would happen to him. His own weapons officer in his _Osprey_ class shuttle was one of them, and had been all along. He had spent a week inside the prison cell of the _Triton_ thinking about that fact; how long had the enemy infiltrated their planet? Their government and so called 'secret' projects? How much planning had gone into their attack, and if so much planning had occurred, why not more attacks? Flight Lieutenant Samuel Jackson was scared of the answers to those questions and didn't really want to know the details of some of them.

When they had found him, the sole survivor of the crew of _Osprey 062_, they had immediately jumped to the conclusion that he had killed their navigations and comms officer, Captain Organ, and that he had jettisoned his weapons' officer's body out of the airlock. He told them of his story and they had shoved him into the holding cells aboard the _Triton_. He had told them of how his weapons officer, Sharon Valerii, had betrayed them as an identical copy of herself was shown over the monitor. They had just come back saying that they had no records of a Sharon Valerii in the PDO or IAO, and that his weapons officer was Jane Samuel, a Russian man from the outdated Cosmonaught program. He knew that they thought that he was crazy; that whatever had happened in the _Osprey_ had driven his mind over the edge.

Johnson felt as though every time he told them the story of the secret base on the moon, and the two giant robots which boarded his ship, that they were believing him less and less. They hadn't said if they had investigated for the location of the base or not, but he had a feeling that they might not. Further to add to the story that Johnson was guilty of the murder of Captain Organ, and this supposed Flight Lieutenant Samuel, was the fact that Valerii had left the weapon that she had taken from Johnson in the _Osprey_, and had made sure that it looked like there had been an attempt to hide it.

**_Osprey 083 – _Approaching the Far Side of the Moon**

They were flying towards a site which 'supposedly' had an enemy base located in it. According to the pilot of _Osprey 062_, an enemy agent, their weapons officer, had kidnapped them within their ship and had threatened them with death, unless they didn't do what they said. The weapons officer had supposedly made them fly the _Osprey_ into a crater on the far side of the moon, where a secret base had been hidden. Apparently, a 'robot' had shot the Navigations and Communications Officer of the_ Osprey,_ before leaving the pilot unharmed, and able to fly back to Earth. That's what they'd been told this morning in their briefing, and they were now going to check out the location that the pilot had told them.

They were about ten minutes away from the crater which Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson had pointed out on overhead maps. It was then that the navigation officer that he could see a possible foreign object on the surface of the moon, via the radar, and that it was moving. Almost immediately, the pilot brought the rotatable engines around one hundred and eighty degrees and brought the _Osprey_ to a complete stop. The Weapons Officer was already using the ships mounted external telescopic cameras to zoom in on the area where the radar blips were occurring.

They all watched the monitor as the magnified moon's surface raced across the screen, before stopping on the coordinates which had been supplied by the radar. It was then that they saw what appeared to be four humanoid looking machines bounding across the moon's surface, away from them at an incredible speed.

"Son of a Bitch was right," the communications officer said out loud.

"Should we investigate?" the pilot asked the rest of the crew. Each of the crew contemplated the idea for a couple of minutes before the communications officer spoke.

"No, we should return with our findings, and then let armed ships investigate this," he suggested. The rest of the crew agreed and the pilot immediately put the_ Osprey _into reverse. Once they had gathered some 'backwards' velocity, she used the small manoeuvring thrusters to turn the ship around and put the engines on full throttle.

**Planetary Defence Organisation – Weekly Conference of Leaders – Undisclosed Location**

Dr. Bruce Miller was one among twenty sitting at the table this week as they had met to discuss the latest events which were occurring around the globe. As well as the ten representatives of each primary member nation of the PDO, there were all of the department heads, himself included, as well as representative from the IAO and some other major organisations.

"What have we learned from the, occupants, of the ship which appeared in our system a week and a half ago?" Dr. MacGuwyre asked.

"According to all of their stories, they've told us that they're from the Twelve Tribes of Mankind. Their home worlds have apparently been wiped out by an attack from an enemy race which they call Cylons," someone answered.

"Did one of them not say that they were the first of a fleet of ships to be arriving here?" Dr. MacGuwyre asked to no one in particular.

"Is that the one that you had tortured?" Miller posed to MacGuwyre straight away. She just looked at him before replying,

"He was the pilot, and appeared to be in command, and would not talk… We had to do what was necessary for the continued survival of our race." Miller just shook his head.

"What if he had been an American Citizen? Or Chinese, British, Indonesian for that matter? You wouldn't have had the guts to do that to him, in fear of retaliation," Miller replied.

"But he's not. He does not belong to this planet, so laws such as those do not apply,' MacGuwyre replied. Miller just snorted in reply.

"But his people will retaliate once they find out what's been done to him… and others," Miller replied. "If he is telling the truth. Then we've made another enemy which is more technologically advanced than us, which we can't afford."

**Earth Ship _Boreas _– Location in 'deep' space**

The _Boreas_ was a _Poseidon_ class cruiser, and it, along with the _Ama-Tesaru_ were the first Earth constructed spacecraft which had been this far away from Earth. They had left Earth's orbit a few days ago and had completed a series of jumps away from Earth. They were to test a new technology, which, if it worked, would add a whole new dimension to space travel for smaller craft than the _Poseidon_ class ships. Even if it failed, Commander Amanda Douglas knew that the research people would have a field day with the information, if they survived.

The _Boreas_ was Australia's contribution to the newly emerging Earth fleet of cruisers, and had been involved in the original skirmish in Earth Orbit between them and their new enemy. After having repairs completed, and a few minor upgrades, she was ready to go again, and this was one of her first orders of duty for the PDO since the attack.

The _Ama-Tesaru_ had been constructed both in Japan and in Switzerland, and apart from the _Solaris_ and the now destroyed _Arawan_, it was the newest version of the _Poseidon. _

"Commander, _Baleen_ 025 is away," the communications officer said to her. Their mission Parameters required that a _Baleen_ class cargo ship hooked onto their rear section and came along, as it was the only ship, apart from the _Triton_ of releasing the probe. He watched on the 'top' radar screen as he could see the _Baleen_ moving in position behind their ship. He could see that the _Ama-Tesaru_ was at a safe distance behind them, and that the large satellite that was in pieces in it's cargo bays was being put together very quickly. They had believed that it would only take half a day, no more to put the pieces together and make sure that everything was working correctly, but so far, it had been three hours and they looked like they might be finished soon, judging from the size of the radar readout she was looking at.

**Five Hours Later **

Commander Amanda had spent her time between looking out the front viewing panel, amazed at how different the stars looked, and looking at the radar screens to see how their progress was going. They were nearly ready now, as she could see the radar blip for their probe, the radar blip for the satellite that had been constructed on the spot by seven _Osprey_ class shuttles was ready and in position. The _Ama-Tesaru_ was a safe distance away, on the edge of their immediate radar range.

"Mam, by all accounts, we're ready to go," the communications officer said to her. She looked up at the radar screen as the _Baleen_ class shuttle moved off, after delivering its last piece which was held in it's cargo bay into space. It was travelling at its fastest pace towards the _Ama-Tesaru_, where it would hide behind it's shields so that the radiation didn't kill the crew. He looked up at the monitors overhead as they all switched to a view of the respective pieces of the technology that they were about to try out. One monitor had the view of a typical satellite, which was running on Fusion power rather than solar or battery power. It was large by all means, but it still looked like an Earth Satellite. Another monitor showed their probe. It was perhaps the largest and most advanced probe that had ever been constructed by man kind, but it was still an unmanned probe. It was twenty metres long, and seven metres across. It housed a large engine on it's back, a new type of hyperdrive on it's front, a couple of sensor and radar packages, a communications package, and a nuclear fusion reactor. The rest of it was just pure computing power which it would need for it's mission. The other monitor showed a rather rectangular, ugly looking construction which the _Baleen_ had just dropped off in front of the _Boreas_.

Amanda Douglas gave a nod at the communications officer after seeing that the _Baleen_ class ship had made it to safety. Immediately, the communications officer started talking into the microphone into the engineering section. Shortly afterwards, a long cylindrical looking arm popped out of the lower front section of the _Boreas_, pointed at the box shaped device in front of it.

One of the laser-point communications arrays on the _Boreas_ pointed itself at the probe and began scanning it for it's own communications array. Once it had found it, light bursts were sent back and forward from the ship and the probe.

The long armlike pole which was sticking out of the front of the _Boreas _began to glow white hot as energy built up in it. Suddenly, a bright flash of light burst out from the front of the probe, and the box in front of the ship jolted. Almost instantaneously, what looked like a bright slit appeared in front of the box, easily larger than it and looking as if it were ready to consume it.

Amanda Douglas was lucky that they had closed the blast doors over the observation port in the bridge, and that they were all watching it through the monitors, or else she would have been blinded.

"Mam. Word from Engineering. If we're going to do this, we'd better do this now," the communications officer relayed to Amanda. She took it in and gave the order to send the message to the probe to activate. They all watched on the screen as the large engine on the back of the probe fired, sending it forward towards the bright slit. It quickly approached it and dived straight headlong into it, the slit closing shortly afterwards as the engineering team and the science team aboard the _Boreas_ said that they couldn't keep it stable for much longer. 

What they had done was to use the _Boreas's _power generation capabilities to power a new 'mobile' hyperspace generator which was in front of the ship. With that, hopefully the probe would travel a couple of light years, and use it's own hyperdrive to exit hyperspace at a predetermined point which they had picked out. From there, it would accelerate to it's maximum speed, which the developers had made sure was very fast, and record all data it could. The jump using the mobile hyperdrive wasn't as effective as the hyperdrives they were currently using, but it was almost as good. The ship had the exact location of the satellite they had just released, and as soon as it calculated that it was at it's own hyperdrive's maximum range, it would automatically turn around, jump back to the location of the satellite, and download all it's information into it. From there, it would use it's conventional engines to head out on a new vector, surveying the surrounding space and sending the information back to the satellite.

The _Boreas_ and _Ama-Tesaru _would leave, and come back in two weeks, hopefully to find data on the satellite which had been uploaded by the probe. Then, that would confirm that their new mobile hyperspace generator could work. If that was the case, ships such as_ Falcons_, _Ospreys_ and other fighters would then have the capacity to travel great distances, that is, if they could be properly shielded from the radiation; if that could happen it could change a lot of things for the PDO.

**Colonial Viper 'Blackbird'**

Kara Thrace was bored out of her mind as she sat in the blackbird, all primary systems powered down as she drifted at thousands of kilometres an hour through space, to both save fuel and not be detected. The _Galactica_ had had a weird DRADIS reading on the extreme DRADIS range, and thinking that it could be possible Cylon activity, the 'Blackbird' was sent to investigate. The blackbird was the fist of now three hand constructed Colonial Vipers whose hulls were created out of carbon composites so as to minimise visibility and detection on DRADIS. So far, on her limited DRADIS range, she couldn't see a thing.

Half an hour passed before Starbuck was startled into sitting ­fully upright in her seat, as she thought that she had seen something flash past the light reflecting off of a 'nearby' moon. She looked around, but couldn't see anything. It wasn't until another five minutes had passed when she got the shock of her life. Flying above her, in the opposite direction, under no power what so ever, was an entire squadron of Cylon Raiders, heading towards the_ Galactica_ and the rest of the fleet.

Her first instinct was to radio into the _Galactica_ and notify them of the situation, except that if she did that, she would risk being detected by the Cylon Raiders, and there wasn't anything she could do if they discovered her, as the _Blackbird_ was weapon less. She couldn't turn the craft around, as then the engine exhaust would make her visible, and could possibly make her show up on the Cylon's DRADIS. She couldn't wait until they were out of range, and then flip the ship around and overtake them, as they would most probably notice her if she was flying on the same vector as the Raiders.

"Frack!" she exclaimed while punching her hand down onto the control console in front of her. She reasoned that the Raiders were most likely launched from a BaseStar, so she decided that she would wait till the Raiders were out of range, and then ignite her engines and go looking for the enemy's BaseStar. It was the only productive thing that she could do, which wouldn't lead to her death.


	11. Chapter 11 Suprise

**Authors Notes**: There'll be a couple of more chapters, and then we're going to do a jump forward in time a bit. The chapters will eventually have more BSG characters appearing in them, as we get close to the time when they'll 'meet'.

Next chapter has a REALLY good idea in it, which I thought of out of pure coincidence. Let's just say that I picked Chicago randomly as the city that the Cylons crash land in. Coincidently, Chicago is on the Great Lakes of America (don't know their actual name). Let's just say that there'll be a _Manta_ or two involved. Next chapter should be up in a couple of days. Next chapter will also have some more of Dr. Wotresser and the Battlestars _Pegasus, Cerebus _and_ Rycon_. I've come up with the ideas of how they survived, but I'm not going to give that away yet, but there may be a few hints in the next chapters. Lets just say, you'll probably all LOVE the story of the _Cerebus_.

**Chapter 11 – Surprise! **

**Colonial Viper 'Blackbird'**

As soon as Starbuck had judged that she was far enough away from the Raiders that had passed her, she ignited her engines, spun the ship around, and headed for the fleet as fast as she could. It took her a couple of hours to get back, drifting at maximum speed. The whole time she had spent looking out the front of her cockpit to see if she was going to catch up to the powered down Cylon Raiders.

When she got back to the fleet, she almost wished that she had been spotted by the Cylons on her way out. She could see missiles streaking towards all the ships of the fleet, and she could see that other ships were already heavily damaged. To her surprise, they weren't using nukes, just ordinary missiles.

"This is Starbuck to Galactica. What can I do to help?" she said into her radio.

"Starbuck, land in the port launch bay and get into a Viper asap," she heard Dee's voice reply to her over the wireless. It was then that Starbuck noticed that there were more Cylon Raiders attacking the fleet on the other side, and guessed that they must have used the same approach, but from an other direction. She engaged the engines and steered the craft at full speed towards the _Galactica_, hoping that a Raider wouldn't come after her as she was weapon-less.

**Holding Cell - Earth Ship _Triton_ **

Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson, or rather, just plain old Samuel Johnson was sitting on the bench within his cell, wondering what all the commotion was about. He could see through the glass pane in the door to the holding cells that there were people running about everywhere outside. It was then that he heard the captain's voice over the ships speakers

"All hands, brace for impact," it said. He didn't know what was going on, but moments later he was knocked off of his bench as the entire ship rumbled and shook violently. He got up and waited for about five minutes before someone came and unlocked the door to his cell.

"Looks like you were right Sam. We've been ambushed from the moon. There's nukes heading towards Earth, and some towards us. We need every available pilot we can get," the person said to him, which Johnson recognised as his official liaison between the outside world and himself.

"I can only pilot _Ospreys_ though," he commented.

"We know, and you're needed."

'**Red _Falcon_ Flight Wing' – Approaching the Moon from space between Mars and Earth. **

Henry O'Connell was leading the 'Red' Wing into the battle after they received a mayday call via the new laser-point communications system. They were on their way out to the asteroid belt for targeting practice, but had swung their ships around as soon as they heard the call. Now, they were approaching the 'dark' side of the moon, where he could see the _Triton_ orbiting around, firing down at the surface. He could see enemy fighters firing missiles which were streaking towards the Triton and impacting on it's hull, one of them nuclear.

"Red wing, stay clear of the _Triton_, over," O'Connell said into the radio to his wingmen, knowing that if they were anywhere near the _Triton_ when a nuke impacted on it's shields, the radiation would kill them while they were in their ships. "Red Wing, cut all networked computer systems and engage weapons," O'Connell said as they were now approaching the battle.

"Red Wing, this is Green Wing. Requesting Assistance at coordinates 034, 121, 251. Have captured enemy hostile and need assistance for protection, over," Henry heard over the radio. He relayed his orders to the rest of the wing, and pulled the nose of his fighter up. In the distance, above the major plane of combat, he could barely see traces of a battle occurring. He checked his navigation computer, and he could see that he was on the right path to the coordinates given by Green Wing. As they approached, Henry used the small telescopic camera mounted underneath his fighter to zoom in on the hostile targets that had been 'captured'. He could see two of the enemy's heavy fighters just drifting in space, appearing to have no power. He could see Green Wing defending the two powered down fighters from other enemy fighters, which appeared to be trying to destroy the powered down fighters.

"Must be important," he muttered to himself. They had received the full briefing over a burst in the laser-point communications system about how they had stumbled upon a hidden enemy base in the moon, and Henry couldn't believe that so many enemy fighters had been hidden right under their noses. He flinched as he saw another bright flash out of the corner of his eye, signalling that a nuke had been detonated. He knew that that area was somewhere around where the_ Triton_ now was, and he was hoping that it was one of their own nukes which had detonated.

Twenty Minutes later, and it was all over. The _Triton_ had launched all of it's missiles towards the moon base, and the enemy defences weren't enough to stop all of them. A total of about six nuclear warheads detonated in succession over the area, obliterating anything living that would have been in the area, as there was no such way that any armour was capable of absorbing that much radiation. One of the transports that O'Connell was guarding had been destroyed in the fight, but they had managed to save the other one. Little did they know that the transport that they had managed to keep was a decoy, meant to lure them away from the three or so enemy transports which had departed the area not too long before the _Triton_ had launched her barrage onto the surface of Earth's Moon.

**Colonial Battlestar _Galactica_**

Starbuck almost jumped out of the cockpit of the 'Blackbird' as soon as she could and went marching towards where her Viper was meant to be. Instead, she was looking at an empty bay, with nothing in it. Immediately, she turned around to go and find Chief Tyrol, but he was standing directly behind her.

"Where's my Viper?" She demanded to him.

"Out," he replied.

"Get me another one then," she demanded. He looked at her, putting his hands up towards her to try to calm her down. She was frustrated that there hadn't been anything for her to do to warn the fleet about the incoming Cylon Raiders, and from what she had seen upon her return in the 'Blackbird', there had been more of them approaching from different directions than the one that she had been travelling in.

"Calm down. Calm down," Tyrol said. "There's none left, they've all been deployed." Without saying another word, Starbuck spun on her heel and headed towards the CIC of the Galactica. If she couldn't fly a Viper, at least she wanted to know what was going on. She made her way through the various crew members who were running about the ship, doing their various jobs now that 'Action Stations' had been called.

She reached the CIC and walked in to see Admiral Adama looking at the DRADIS screen. She briefly glanced up at it, and saw that there were a rather large number of red markings on it, signifying enemy ships.

"What happened?" she asked the Admiral.

"Three Squadrons of Cylon Raiders ambushed us, drifted in on no power, from three sides. The first thing they did was target the FTL drives of the civilian ships. We're sitting ducks," Colonel Tigh answered in response.

"Not if there's anything we can do about it," Admiral Adama replied. Starbuck watched as he turned and faced Lt. Gaeta.

"Lieutenant Gaeta," he simply said with a nod in his direction. Gaeta left his post and turned to leave the CIC. He was gone only moments before he returned, with four marines, and a very familiar looking woman with him. Starbuck recognised the woman as Gina, a Cylon model which they had acquisitioned from the _Pegasus_ when they had rendezvoused beforehand. She was made to kneel down on the ground. Admiral Adama pulled out a sidearm and placed it right at her forehead.

"We know that you have the ability to shut down those Raiders out there," he said calmly and coldly to her, while gesturing towards the DRADIS screen with his other hand. He was met with a cold look and no reply. "You will do this, or you will be destroyed," Adama said to her.

"Go ahead. Do it!" she said through almost clenched teeth towards the Admiral. Starbuck watched as he saw Adama more firmly push the pistol into her forehead. She watched as he looked up towards Gaeta, and gave a small nod. Gaeta, again, left the CIC, but he was gone for a longer time this time. It was probably a good three minutes or so before he returned, with more marines and another figure in tow.

Gaius Baltar was placed beside Gina, kneeling before Adama with his hands and feet restrained after he had been requisitioned from Galactica's brig. Starbuck watched as Adama pointed the pistol towards Baltar, never taking his eyes off of the Cylon.

"You will do this for us, or he will be killed," Adama firmly said.

"Do it, he's a good for nothing slimy weasel," Colonel Tigh commented.

"You wouldn't," Gina replied to Adama.

"And why not? He was the main reason that you were able to get past our defences. He betrayed us all, for a Cylon model which was identical to you. Why would I even hesitate," Adama replied. He was handed a fibre-optic cable by Dee, and he moved it towards Gina. He pushed the pistol in his hand towards Baltar more, reassuring Gina that he was ready to pull the trigger. Starbuck saw Gina bow her head, and take the line into her hand. She was made to use her own fingernails to make an incision into the skin on the underside of her wrist. "If there are ANY unwanted side effects, he dies," Adama said right before Gina started to thread the cable up her own vein.


	12. Chapter 12 Infiltration

**Author's Notes: **This chapter's up now. Uni finished earlier tody. Expect some more frequent updates for the next coupla weeks until I go to the mine. This is a long chapter, and you get to learn a SMALL bit about the other Battlestars at the end of the chapter.

Next chapter will be good. Focusing on New Colonial Characters, as well as ones that we already know, and a couple of characters from earth.

Expect a new chapter every four days or so. I'm also going to update "War Cries", my Buffy series. So, I'm giving two days for a chapter from each story, so, yeah, four days or so.

Enjoy reading, and give lots of reviews, they're always appreciated

**Chapter 12 - Infiltration**

**Two Days Later**

Sergeant Henderson didn't know why he'd signed up for this mission, it was just crazy. He'd been asked if he wanted to partake in a very dangerous, but very rewarding mission. He'd been asked if he wanted to serve the PDO, and to do good for the entire planet. But, he hadn't been asked if he wanted to be dropped from the upper atmosphere into the Great Lakes of America and Canada in a tin can.

A day ago, a man had approached him while he was in his quarters in the Barracks in London, England. He had asked him all of the questions that had just raced through his mind, and he had said that the mission was going to be very rewarding, but could not give any details until he accepted it. So, of course, what did he do? He accepted it.

It was then that he had been briefed on the situation in Chicago; that the enemy had crash landed there, had set up missile batteries, and now more recently, anti-aircraft batteries; how they had been bombing the city, until these anti-aircraft batteries had been installed, and now none of their ships could get close enough. He had been briefed about how they were just considering re-nuking the entire city from orbit, but they wanted to send in a ground team first to try and decipher anything that they could about their enemy, and to destroy as many things as they could. Somehow, their enemy had survived in a highly radioactive zone for over a week, and they had no idea how they were doing it.

So now, here he was, strapped into the back of a _Manta_ class ship, that hadn't been tested little more than a couple of days ago, with five other people. They were all wearing a suit that fully covered their bodies, as well as a special mask which would filter their air and prevent any radioactive substances from getting in. Before each of them had gotten into their suit, they had been covered in a paste-like substance which they had been told would help block out the radiation. After they had put their suits on, this paste-like substance was then applied to the outside of their suits as well.

"Everyone strapped in?" he heard the pilot of the craft ask as they dangled from a rail which was coming out of a_ Poseidon_ class ship in the upper atmosphere. They all nodded, and as soon as that had occurred, he felt the ship drop away from the rail, and he knew that they were starting to pick up speed towards the ground. The theory was that if the _Manta_ craft could be dropped from the upper atmosphere, they'd be moving too fast for the enemies anti-aircraft batteries to hit, or their missiles to intercept. That was the theory of it anyway, and Henderson was hoping that it would come through. Once they reached the water, they were hoping that the enemy had no way of firing upon them while they were underwater. Then, they would surface and the _Mantas_ would let the teams of soldiers out into the city. There, they would have a maximum of three hours before the scientists warned that radiation would start to seep through their suits. Four hours before they would suffer long term effects, and six hours before they would die slowly.

Henderson checked that he was securely in his seat, the secure padding all around him and the very tight straps across his entire body were making sure that he couldn't even move. He had been told not to eat much, as the impact of the _Manta_ hitting the water might make them bring up their food, if their stomach was full.

He could now hear the large engines on the side of the craft spinning up. They had been briefed about the procedure of dropping the _Manta_ from the upper atmosphere, and was guessing that they would reach a height of seven kilometres above sea level soon, as then they would activate the two turbines on the side of the ship to slow it down enough so that it wouldn't be shattered upon impact into the water.

"Detecting four missiles approaching," he heard through his radio from one of the pilots of the _Manta_. He hoped that now was the time that theory could be put into practice, and that the missiles would not be able to hit them. The time passed with agonising cruelty, but Henderson knew that it would have only been moments. "Missiles passed, missiles have passed us," the pilot said through the radio.

"Wait, they're coming around," the other pilot said.

"Don't worry. By the time they reach us, we'll be in the water," the first pilot said. Henderson heard the two turbine engines spin up and activate to slow their descent. According to him, they had only just started when he heard them spinning down, and sliding and grinding sounds coming from outside the ship. He realised that they must have done their job, and were now moving back behind the ship via a special rail-type system that had been installed on the ships.

"30 seconds until impact," the pilot said into their radios. Henderson knew that it was now or never, and that he didn't have much trust in the technology that they were using.

The next thing he knew was that the ship was stable, and that the people around him looked like they were coming down with the fever. He couldn't see any of their faces, but their heads were rolling around on their necks, like they were disorientated.

"What the hell," Henderson managed to say with great effort.

"Some of you lost consciousness upon impact," he heard through his radio which was embedded in his mask.

"Oh," was all that Henderson could manage to reply. They waited perhaps five minutes before the pilots spoke to them over the radio.

"We are now holding position on the bottom of the Great Lakes. We will be holding this position for approximately forty-five minutes until we begin to move towards Chicago," the pilot said to them.

**Office of Bruce Miller – Planetary Defence Organisation**

"…_Under the rule of God_

_The Children of The Twelve Colonies of Kobol_

_They will venture out into the void in two great Convoys,_

_Where upon they will come across the lost Thirteenth Tribe_

_Delivering salvation and destruction to those they encounter…"_

Bruce Miller was sitting back in his chair, looking at the text which was upon his computer screen. They had found various writings upon The Great Ship, and this was one of them. After a couple of years of study, they had managed to translate the language, after finding that it was a derivative of early Latin. They were still trying to crack the computer systems of The Great Ship, however they had very formidable defences and it was hard to try and create a common language that Earth's computers could talk to the computers of The Great Ship.

The text on the screen was pretty much self explanatory when taken in context of what they knew; that there was a planet called Kobol, which was believed to be the birthplace of human kind, and that they left the planet in Thirteen groups, Earth being the Thirteenth. They knew that there was some kind of disagreement between Earth and the other Twelve Tribes. They knew that somewhere along the line, if this was true, Earth had lost it's technology and had started again. They knew from the text that the other Twelve Tribes had come, and obviously the conflict that had made the Thirteenth Tribe go in the other direction, was still alive and fluid with the other Twelve Colonies. The only problem they were having with the text was the last line, _"Delivering Salvation and destruction to those they encounter…"_. No one could see how any kind of Salvation could come out of what had happened on Earth, from all the deaths from the first, and now second, attacks.

**_Manta_ _004 – _Underneath the Great Lakes of the US and Canada, approaching Chicago. **

From what the pilots had said to them, they were now approaching Chicago, and were about five minutes out. So far, according to everything that the pilots could tell, they hadn't been detected. They had detected no sonar beams, or any other kind of active sensors which would have revealed their position.

Henderson could feel them ascending, and he heard from the pilots that they were now only a couple of metres beneath the surface, approaching Oak Street Beach. He could hear the sounds of the engines spinning up, getting ready to land the ships onto the beach.

"As soon as that hatch opens, we move out and form a defensive perimeter on the beach for the other _Mantas_ to surface safely," he heard his commanding officer saying over the radio. "Keep low, and if you have to go to ground, make sure you don't land on any shells or anything. One breach of your suit, and you're as good as dead," the commanding officer said to them all. "We're ready," Henderson heard him saying into the radio to the pilots. In the matter of seconds, he heard the engines go from a slight humming sound to a roar, and they were all bounced around in their seats as the _Manta_ surged forward and upwards at the same time. He could feel it as the _Manta_ rose above the water, and started hovering up the beach. They surged forward, and with a thump, the _Manta_ almost crashed into the beach as the pilots set it down. Almost immediately after, he could hear the sounds of air being pushed into the cabin as the pilots equalled the pressure with the outside world. Almost immediately after that, the rear hatch popped open, and the large harnesses that were keeping them all in place rose up upon instruction of the pilots. Henderson began to release the various buckles of other straps which were keeping him down, and within half a minute, the entire squad was up and ready to go. He reached into a compartment which was built into the walls of the craft, above where his head would have been, and grabbed his weapon.

Others of his squad were already at the ramp, and they were starting to move outside. He took up his position, raised his weapon, and moved outside. He went out the back of the hatch, and moved up along the side of the craft, his weapon pointing up the entire time as his eyes scanned first the beach, and then the cityscape beyond for any threats. He didn't have to wait long before one of his team mates moved past him. He looked across to his right, and he could see that another _Manta_ craft had landed on the beach, and another squad was doing the exact same thing as his.

They moved up the beach until they were all crouching down behind a small concrete wall which had been put in place along the brim of the beach, to stop especially high tides from creeping over onto the road ahead. Henderson had his weapon raised, and slowly scanned the area in front of him, and couldn't see a thing.

"This is Henderson. Area clear, over," he said into the radio to his squad commander and he could hear others doing the same thing. They waited a couple of minutes, before they could hear the squad commander telling the pilots that everything was all clear. Moments later, Henderson could hear the other _Manta_ class ships coming up from under the water, and hovering towards the beach. From his experience in the _Manta_, it was an extraordinary craft, although it paled in comparison to the _Poseidon_ which they had launched from. Henderson wasn't a member of the PDO or IAO's ground assault teams, but he had been brought in on this mission, and compared to the technology that they had before the 'space revolution' as they were calling it on the News, it was very impressive. The only thing that could use improvement was it's noise. The craft made a hell of a lot of noise, and he guessed it was because of the nature of the large engines mounted on the sides. They were just simple turbines, in other words, large propellers mounted within the engine housing. That was what made it possible for the _Manta_ to travel in an atmosphere, as well as in water. In the atmosphere, the turbines would have to spin extraordinarily fast to make the craft hover above the ground, while in water they could slow the engines down as water was a thicker medium than air.

There was no doubt that he could hear the _Mantas _once they came above the water. Once they had landed on the beach, it seemed like it was completely silent. It was then that Henderson realised, it was completely silent. There wasn't a noise around. He looked ahead, and he noticed that there were no birds, no movement, nothing. It was the first signs that Henderson got that the city had been bombed, by both nuclear warheads as well as conventional warheads. He looked past the immediate area in front of him, and he could see large chunks which had been taken out of skyscrapers, while he could see lots of rubble on the ground.

"Quiet," he heard someone saying over the radio, guessing that his thoughts were mirroring his own.

"Yeah, it is," he heard another voice say.

"Radio Silence!" Henderson heard the commanding officer exclaim over the radio. It was then that he remembered his briefing; they were uncertain of the abilities of the enemy, and they might be able to hack into their squad radio transmissions.

Ten minutes later, and they were leapfrogging along North Michigan Avenue, towards the remains of the Federal Reserve Bank, where the enemy ship had crashed. His squad was charged with the task of checking out that area, and seeing if there were any remains of the enemy ship to salvage. Charlie squad was also accompanying them, just in case they did find something to salvage which was small enough for them to carry back to the beach. They had covered about a kilometre before they were all ordered to stop and find cover by their commanding officer.

"I saw movement ahead," Henderson heard someone say over the radio. It was then that they began to hear the thudding sound of what sounded kind of like an automatic machine gun, except it was slightly off, in the distance.

"This is Delta Squad, we're under fire from an unknown location, and we're pinned down. Requesting extraction, over," they heard the commander of Delta Squad say over the radio to all units.

"Bravo Squad, movement two hundred metres South, along the road," he heard his own commanding officer say to them over their radio. Henderson had taken cover behind a doorway, and he raised his weapon, and looked around the side of the doorway. He looked along the length of his weapon, pointing it wherever he looked so that if he did see something that he needed to shoot, he could do it immediately. Apart from a large pile of rubble, and a couple of broken down, overturned cars that he could see in the middle of the road, he couldn't see anything. He was just about to look away, when he saw it. Something was moving around behind the cars, moving from car to car, using them as cover.

"This is Bravo four, confirmed possible hostile, south, three hundred metres, over," Henderson said to the rest of his squad. He could see someone else from his squad, who was only about twenty metres or so in front of him, using a parked car as cover, get up from his position and begin to scan the area in front of them. It was only moments after that had happened, than Henderson heard it, the sounds of gunfire, and they were close. He saw holes appear in the front of the car, as his squad mate ducked down behind it. Moments later, holes were being carved into the wall next to Henderson's head from bullets flying towards his position. Before he knew what was happening, he had rounded the corner and was now using the doorway as cover, as he could see chips being taken out of the corner of the wall, right near where he was.

"Under fire, under fire, under fire!" Henderson heard one of his squad mates exclaiming into the radio.

"Where the hell are they?" he heard another one asking.

"They're shooting out of the windows. Fourth floor, brick building on the right side of the road," he heard someone else say. He noticed that the fire had moved off of him, and Henderson poked his head and his weapon around the corner. He quickly looked for the brick building, and he almost immediately saw it. He scanned the windows, and could see the muzzle flashes of gunfire emanating from one of them. He aimed and pulled the trigger, letting off a burst of gunfire. It was then that he saw a movement out of the edge of his vision, near where they were scouting out the movement that they had seen before.

He looked and his stomach almost came up his throat as he saw what appeared to be a large mechanical robot, with a chain gun for it's arm, running up the street.

"Contact, South, One-Fifty Metres," he said into the radio. He shot off a couple of rounds towards the robot, and he watched as they had almost no effect. "Shit," he said to himself as he ducked around the corner of the doorway again. Moments later, bullets pounded into the wall around the corner, where he would have been moments before.

"This is Charlie Leader, requesting extraction for Charlie and Bravo Squads," Henderson heard the leader of Charlie squad saying into the radio.

"Bravo Squad, concentrated fire on street contact on Three, acknowledge. Charlie Squad, covering fire, acknowledge?" he heard his squad leader say into the radio. A series of acknowledgements came over the radio, and Henderson switched his weapon to automatic fire. "One, two, three," Bravo Squad Commander said.

Henderson rounded the corner and pointed his weapon directly at the contact which had now slowed to a walk up the street, firing as it went. He let off a couple of bursts of fire before the recoil ruined his aim. He could just hear sustained weapons fire around him, as both Bravo and Charlie Squads let rip. He readjusted his aim, and let of a sustained burst of bullets towards the glowing red eye of the robot on it's head, and to his surprise, the robot stopped moving and fell to the ground in a heap.

"This is _Manta 002 and 003 _to Bravo and Charlie Squads, ready for extraction," he heard a new voice say over the radio.

"This is Bravo Leader to _Manta 002_, we are recovering a downed enemy combatant, make ready for extraction, over," Henderson heard his commander say. Henderson could hear the screaming engines of the _Mantas_ as they came towards their location. Seeing as they weren't even two kilometres away from Oak Street Beach, the_ Manta's_ wouldn't have taken long to get to them. "Bravo Squad, once the _Manta's_ land, four of you are to move the enemy combatant into the rear compartment of the _Manta_ while the other four provide cover. Charlie Squad will provide additional cover, as well as cover to the _Manta_ craft. Once the enemy combatant is aboard, we pull out, over," Bravo leader said. They agreed that Bravo one to four would carry the combatant, while five through to eight would provide cover. Luckily for Henderson, he was number four.

He watched as the _Manta_ moved up the street, hovering about four metres off of the ground. He was relieved to see that the enemy fire from the enemy combatant in the building over the road couldn't penetrate its armour. The _Manta_ moved up to the robot which was located on the ground, and then spun around and ungracefully dropped onto the ground, the back hatch opening as it did so.

"_Bravo squad, go, go, go," _Bravo leader said over the radio. Henderson raised his weapon, fired a couple of bursts towards the window where the enemy fire was coming from before, and then sprinted across the road towards the _Manta_. He could see enemy fire being returned, but it wasn't near him, so he kept on going. He reached the side of the _Manta_ and moved along it's length towards the back, which was facing southwards. The enemy would be able to fire towards the opening of the _Manta_ as they loaded the robot into it. He knew that this was not going to be easy.

**Colonial Battlestar _Cerebus_**

Commander Ivy walked along the halls of the Battlestar, reading a daily report of the prisoner that they were holding in their cell. It hadn't shown any ill effects from the ionised radiation which they were pumping into the cell. She looked at the reports from the _Pegasus_ and the _Rycon_, and the Cylons aboard both of those ships were either very sick, or dead already from the radiation. Theirs, however, had shown none of the same effects that the others had. They had intelligence from the _Pegasus_ when it had run into the _Galactica_, that there were only twelve Cylon Models, but Commander Ivy was thinking that there were only twelve Cylon models, at that time, and since then, they could have developed new ones, immune to the effects of ionised radiation. Commander Ivy ceased reading the reports as she saw the chief science advisor of the fleet coming towards her. She was housed on the _Cerebus_, as it was the most advanced ship in the fleet, and was now housing the strange ship that they had managed to recover from the Cylons.

"Here's your report on our findings about the unidentified vessel," Myra, the science advisor said as she handed a clip board to Ivy.

"Would you mind summarising it for me?" Ivy asked her.

"We've found that the ship is not a Cylon ship. The technology on board is far, far, too primitive for it to be a Colonial Ship, and is far lacking for Cylon Technology," Myra said. "However, the technology is far different from anything we've ever encountered, and we've been able to conclude that it is not Colonial or Cylon in origin… however, we have discovered some Cylon Technology on board. We had to guess where the ship's own version of FTL system was located, and we were very eager to examine it, instead we found a complete, retrofitted Cylon FTL drive in it's place. It looked as if the ship's original FTL system had been ripped out and replaced," Myra explained. This got Ivy's attention.

"Have you been able to examine the Cylon FTL drive?" Ivy asked.

"Yes sir. That's the most interesting thing. If we can understand the workings of the Cylon's FTL drive sir, we should be able to update the FTL drive of all ships in the fleet. If it's got the same range as the FTL system that's onboard the Heavy Raiders we've captured, we should be able to jump the entire fleet back to the Colonies in about five jumps, if we want to sir," Myra said.

"I want you and your team to get on this right away. Use any personnel or equipment from any ship in the _Odente_ project," Commander Ivy said to Myra.

"Yes sir," Myra replied. "It may take some time, we will need to master the ship's systems so that we can test the FTL drive and find out how it works," she added. Commander Ivy nodded and dismissed Myra. She was going to pay the XO a visit. Then, they would both go to visit this thing that they were holding in the brig, which liked to call itself Wotresser. For some reason, Ivy knew that there was much more to it that met the eye, and she had a small suspicion growing in the back of her mind, that she knew exactly who he was, and where he was from.


	13. Chapter 13

Authors Notes: Bad news. I'm leaving for the mine tomorrow, and don't come back until the 23rd December. But, good news is that i've printed this story out, am taking it to the mine, so that in my spare time i can go over it and flesh out some ideas. When i get back, i should be ready to hammer out a coupla chapters.

Good reading.

Nothing really much happens in this chapter, it's just a set-up for things to come.

Enjoy.

**Chapter 13**

**Colonial Battlestar _Galactica_**

They had disabled the Raiders which had snuck up on them, and were in the midst of collecting them for study and spare parts, when an unidentified contact appeared on the DRADIS screen.

"Unidentified Contact," Lt. Gaeta said, and to Starbuck's dismay, she could see that it was almost right on top of the fleet from her view of the DRADIS screen. "Cylon BaseStar, bearing 083, 320. It's launching Raiders," Lt. Gaeta said after a few moments. Starbuck immediately started to leave the CIC of the Galactica and head towards the Viper Bays. The Vipers would have just landed and she would be able to rotate someone off. As she was running there, she heard the announcement of Condition One throughout the ship, and she wondered what they were going to do about the Civilian ships. From the reports that were coming into the bridge, some of the ships engines were disabled, including their FTL drives.

Starbuck reached the Viper bay and she immediately rotated Flight Sergeant Stacey Reantt off of her duty and claimed her Viper. Five minutes later, and she was sitting in the launch tubes, going over the pre-flight checklist.

"Engines, Guns, Life-Support, Navigation, Structural Integrity, All green. Lets go, lets go, lets go," she said into the wireless to the launch commanders. She rested her head back against the headrest of her chair to prevent her head being slammed back once the catapult started. Moments later, she could see the walls of the launch tube rushing past her as the catapult launched her viper into space. As soon as she had the craft stabilised, she looked to her left and right and was glad to see that there were other Vipers in the air.

"This is Galactica to all Vipers. Fleet will not FTL out of location until all personnel aboard ships with non-operational FTL drives are transferred to other ships. Primary objective is to act as escort until that time. Galactica out," Starbuck heard over the wireless. This would not work, and they were going to lose people, both Viper pilots and civilians, even though they did have a full complement of Vipers thanks to the Pegasus when they rendezvoused one and a half years ago. They hadn't seen the Cylons for three quarters of a year of that time, and now, suddenly, as they were nearing Earth, the Cylons were attacking them.

"All pilots. Form up and engage Raiders," Starbuck heard Apollo say over the wireless. He had recently been promoted, but they needed all of the qualified Viper pilots that they had, and he was one of the best.

"This is Galactica to all Vipers. Be advised of another Cylon Base Star, bearing 310, 030," Starbuck heard over the wireless.

"This is Apollo to Galactica. We can't face those odds. It's fracking insane," Starbuck heard Apollo say into the wireless almost instantly.

**Battlestar Cerebus**

Dr. Wotresser was starting to think that maybe his captors, who currently held him, weren't the same people who had abducted the _Copenhagen_ and subsequently, himself. He had not seen any of the large mechanical walking machines that the captors of the _Copenhagen_ used, but he had seen a large number of people. That didn't change the fact that he was still in a holding cell, no matter who he was captured by.

He was sitting in his cell, listening to the throbbing of the machines behind the walls. He remembered them telling him something about pumping ionised radiation into his cell, and he was guessing that one of the sounds that he could hear would be the pump. He heard the sound of the door opening to the brig and looked across to see four marines enter the room, followed by someone in a dark officers uniform. Some more people entered the room, in various states of attire, but most of them were wearing the standard military uniform of these 'Colonials'. Dr. Wotresser was surprised when two of the marines unlocked the door to his holding cell, and instructed him to stand up. They came over to him and took the cuffs off of his wrists and ankles.

"Mr. Wotresser?" a mature-aged looking woman said to him as she stepped towards him. She was the one wearing the dark blue uniform of the Colonial Officers, which he had now come to recognise.

"Yes?" Dr. Wotresser heard himself say while noticing that the two marines which were inside his cell had their weapons raised towards him.

"I am Commander Catalin Ivy, Commander of this Battlestar," he heard her say. "You are being moved to a secure location for an inquiry. Some of the material covered in the inquiry will be highly classified to the Colonial Government, and must not be mentioned to any individual not participating within the discussion. A shoot to kill order has been given to the marines acting as escort for this discussion should you make any unexpected, sudden movements or pursue any dangerous behaviour," she rattled off in front of him, it obviously being a standard clause in their Government System. "Do you understand?" Dr. Wotresser took a couple of moments to think over what had just been said and nodded his head.

"Yes," he said while nodding.

"If you will please follow me," the Commander said while turning around. Dr. Wotresser did so, and they exited the holding area. He noticed that as soon as they exited the area, more marines appeared from no where and acted as escort. He noticed that they all seemed to have weapons similar to those on Earth. A number of other people were walking with him.

Ten minutes, and a maze of corridors that Wotresser didn't have a chance in memorising, later, they had come to what appeared to be their destination. One of the marines opened the large armoured door in front of them, and Wotresser could see the hints of a large room on the other side. They stepped through, and Dr. Wotresser could see that they were in some kind of large hangar. He looked down it's lengths, and was very surprised. It was absolutely huge, and he guessed that the hangar must have been close to a kilometre long. He saw something down one end, with people all over it, and he recognised it as the _Copenhagen_, the research ship from Earth. He didn't get time to have much of a look before they rounded a corner and started to walk up some flights of stairs.

They came to another hangar-like area, but this one had a lot of smaller ships within it. He was escorted onto one of them, which he supposed was a shuttle. He noticed that a number of the group that had been walking with him were escorted into another shuttle, but the majority of the marines remained in his own shuttle.

Dr. Wotresser watched as they were raised on some kind of platform beneath the shuttle to an opening in the ceiling, which after he saw how it operated, guessed that it was a small airlock. They then were raised onto what seemed to be the top deck, which was familiar to Wotresser. As he was looking out the front of the shuttle, from the back, he could see that the end was open to space, and he could remember being brought into the ship, as a captive of the other group that had had him.

"Raptor 532 and 802 cleared for take off," he heard a voice say over the radio. He watched as the shuttle easily lifted off of the bottom of the deck and accelerated towards the opening.

They had exited the opening, and had started to head towards a ship which was on the other side of the 'fleet'. The fleet had grown considerably larger since the last time Wotresser remembered seeing it. The last time he had seen it, there had been the three massive battleships as well as a couple of smaller ships, which he guessed were support ships. Now, there were at least fifteen smaller ships. He noticed the two other battleships at the 'front' of the fleet, and he also noticed that they had no smaller ships surrounding them, like the battleship he had just came from did.

Minutes later, and Dr. Wotresser was sitting in what appeared to be a conference room aboard one of the smaller ships that they had docked with. He looked up as Commander Ivy and her entourage entered the room, one of which he recognised as the man which had tortured him onboard the battleship.

"This room has been swept for Cylon electronic listening devices and all other Cylon devices, and it is clean. All conversations which occur within this room today are not being recorded by Colonial methods either," Commander Ivy said as she sat at the head of the conference table. Wotresser just looked around at the people sitting at the table. Apart from Commander Ivy and the man which had tortured him, there was a long-blonde haired woman who was dressed in what appeared to be civilian clothes, as well as two other men in the Officers' Uniform. "We have with us today, Dr. Myra, head of science aboard the _Terran Star_, and Commander Fisk of the Battlestar _Pegasus_ and Commander Turally of the Battlestar _Rycon_, and the captive Dr. Wotresser, who is the subject of today's meeting," Commander Ivy said. Wotresser looked around the room, and he could see that everyone had mixed expressions.

There was a couple of moments silence, but it was the awkward silence that Wotresser knew went on too long, and he didn't like it.

"Mr. Wotresser," Commander Ivy said, getting his attention. "You have been exposed to ionised radiation for over a week, and through various hair and blood samples that we have taken and tested, we have determined that you are not a Cylon operative," she said to him. Wotresser still wanted to know why these people were paranoid about him, and what a Cylon was. He was guessing that the party which had captured him first were Cylon. He had spent many hours in his cell, trying to figure it all out. He had figured out that, because of the Colonial's paranoia, that they were obviously at war with another race or group. What he didn't know was; which side were the oppressors, and which side was the defenders. He didn't like either race, as he had been subjected to torture by both sides. He had determined that he wasn't going to take any sides, and if the opportunity presented itself, he would try to inflict the maximum amount of damage that he could to either side. Today was not that day, as the marines had a 'shoot to kill' order on him, and he knew that he needed to figure more out first. He was also shocked to know that these Colonials had taken blood and hair samples from him, without his knowledge.

"We discovered various genetic differences in your DNA, which do not match any genetic variations within members of the Twelve Colonies," the scientist, Dr. Myra said. "We have taken a guess to your origins, but we don't really want to say it," she continued.

"So, if you will, Dr. Wotresser. Can you tell us exactly where you're from?" Commander Ivy asked nicely of him. He sat there, considering the question.

"No. I can't. I want some answers!" he replied. "Where the hell am I? Who are you people? Who is a Cylon? What do you want with me, and why are you keeping me alive? Why should I tell you anything?" Wotresser exasperated, not really knowing what he said as it came out so fast.

"We can not answer any of your questions until you tell us where you are from," Commander Ivy replied.

"Why?" Wotresser asked.

"So then we know that it's safe to disclose that information to you," one of the men in an officers uniform almost spat at him. He was expecting something along the lines of 'you idiot' being added to the sentence, but it never came. Wotresser took a couple of moments to think, and then replied

"I'm from Australia, in the Southern Hemisphere of the Planet Earth. Third planet from the sun in the Sol. System," Wotresser replied. He was very surprised to see the shocked reactions of the people sitting around the table to his reply, it was obviously what they were looking for. "And from what I can gather. You are from the 12 Colonies of Kobool?" Wotresser added, thinking back to the origins of the Great Ship. If these people were indeed from the 12 Colonies of Kobool, then he was royally stuffed.

"Yes, we are from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol," the other Commander replied. There was a long moment of silence that Ivan Wotresser could tell was awkward for everyone in the room.

"On behalf of the Colonial Remnant, we are very sorry for any harm that you have suffered while you have been aboard the Battlestar _Cerebus_, and will we will repay you in any way that we can," Commander Ivy said to him.

"You mean to say that you're sorry? That you don't intend to harm me more? No more interrogations?" Wotresser asked in response, surprised.

"Why would we? You're our own kin," Dr. Myra asked him.

"We have recently in our history discovered texts which have said that the 12 Colonies will return to Earth, bringing death and destruction to us… although, not many believe those texts. No one can predict the future," Wotresser explained. Everyone sat in silence for a few minutes, before it was Commander Ivy who spoke up.

"I believe that you have some questions you would like answered," Commander Ivy said to Wotresser.

"Yes. Can you tell me who exactly you are, what your objectives are, and what the hell a Cylon is?" Wotresser was relieved to see that the Commander nodded her head.

"I'll start it from the beginning, the short story… We are from the Twelve Colonies of Mankind. We created the Cylons, machines with Artificial Intelligence which we then used to fulfil our tasks, and even fight in our wars. They rebelled, and there was a war between the Colonies and the Cylons. Then, they disappeared for forty years. They then returned and wiped out all of our worlds. We are one of two fleets seeking out Earth, the thirteenth colony, for refuge from the Cylons and to seek Earth's help in defence," Ivy explained to Wotresser. He sat there, absorbing the information.

"Those people we took you from, they were Cylons," Another one of the Commanders said to him.

"That's impossible. There were people working with them," Wotresser said.

"They are Cylons as well. We don't know how they did it, but they are very close to human now, right down to our emotions and our blood. Even their ships are partly biological now," Ivy said.

An hour and a half later, Wotresser felt as if they were telling the truth. He had questioned all of the commanders and people in the room about various aspects of their story. Either, they were lying and had a really good story worked out, or they were all telling the truth.

"What can you tell me about this other fleet that you keep talking about?" Wotresser asked them.

"The fleet holds the majority of our population. The last that we heard of, it was made up of thirty nine civilian ships, which are being escorted by the Battlestar Galactica, a ship much like the large warships of this fleet, except much, much older. It was about to be decommissioned when the attack occurred," Commander Fisk of the Pegasus said.

"So, if the majority of your population is in that fleet, wouldn't it make sense to have most of your battleships guarding that fleet?" Wotresser asked.

"We're trying to catch up to them. They're making their way towards Earth, leaving beacons hidden in systems with large amounts of natural resources, to point us on our way," Commander Fisk replied. There was another long silence, before Commander Ivy spoke up.

"If you don't mind Dr. Wotresser, we are very eager to ask you some questions. Wotresser nodded, and he was surprised to see Ivy go immediately into it. She hit a button on what looked like controls built into the conference table, and an image sprung up on the wall behind her. What Wotresser was amazed at was the fact that there was no screen, and he could see no projecting device.

He looked at the image, and he recognised it as a three dimensional star chart. He watched as Commander Ivy hit some more controls, and it zoomed in on an area of the star chart. The image zoomed in again, this time showing a representation of a solar system.

"Dr. Wotresser. Can you confirm that the third planet from the sun is indeed the location of Earth?" Commander Ivy asked him.

"Yes, as far as I can tell, that's the Sol. System," he replied. Wotresser was surprised to hear a commotion coming from his left, and he turned to see Commander Fisk and Commander Turally standing up.

"Where did this information come from?" Commander Fisk of the Battlestar Pegasus demanded.

"That information is highly classified, but I have been considering on how I should tell the pair of you this… The information came from the _Cerebus'_ database," Ivy replied.


	14. Chapter 14

**Authors Notes:** I'm back from the mine, and the next 3 or so chapters will be laying the groundwork for future chapters.

Reply to reviews

Kou Shun'u: It's purely a coincidence that the majority of personnel in command are women… I was writing the story, and when I need to introduce a new character, I usually think 'most the ppl in this are male so far, so, I need a female character'… in the last couple of chapters, the characters introduced have been in command. I'll try to keep it even from now

Grayangle: thanks for the numerous reviews… there is a plan behind why the Cerebus has Earth's coordinates… it'll be coming up in 5-10 chapters or so.

* * *

**Chapter 14**

**Three Months Later**

**Battlestar Galactica**

Colonel Sol. Tigh was watching as Chief Tyrol and the rest of the deck crew was preparing some of the last remaining Raptors for what very well may be the most important mission they would ever undertake. The deck crew was upgrading the ships' sensor equipment with all passive remote sensing devices that it was capable of carrying. They were then going to load the rear cargo compartment with fuel and supplies, just in case the pilots of the Raptors would need them.

Four Months ago, Admiral Adama had suggested to himself, Starbuck, Apollo, and President Keikeya that they overshoot Earth and continue running in hope to lose the pursuing Cylons forever. They were gambling on the fact that the Cylons were just waiting for them to reach Earth so that they could then exterminate all of humanity in one quick movement. If they made enough jumps past Earth and changed their general direction a couple of times, the Cylons may never find them again. They had decided not to undertake that course of action two months ago, as repeated Cylon attacks had devastated both the fleet and the Galactica herself. Of the forty ships that had left the twelve colonies, nineteen were still with the fleet. They were quickly running out of ways to accommodate for all the civilians within the fleet without running out of resources. They needed to get to Earth, and they needed to get there now, in any hopes that the Thirteenth tribe would take them under their wing and offer to help them, if they were capable.

The Colonial ship the _Adriatic_ which they had dispatched four months ago to race ahead to Earth had never returned from the fleet, and they hadn't heard from it since then. Obviously, it had been captured or destroyed by the Cylons, or had run out of fuel and was drifting in space somewhere 'behind' the fleet.

They were now roughly ten jumps away from Earth, and the Raptors were being dispatched, along with the Blackbird to jump ahead of the fleet and bring back an initial assessment of the solar system which Earth was supposed to be located in, according to Cylon information.

Tigh had seen the morale among the ship, and also in the civilian fleet. He thought that all the civvies needed to toughen up, but somewhere in his mind, he also knew that they needed a rest. They were literally packed into the remaining ships like sardines, with viruses sweeping through the population every week. He knew that they had it fairly good on the Galactica, although their standard of living was deteriorating rapidly as well. They needed this mission, and he hoped to the Gods that the Raptors would bring some good information back to the fleet.

Lt. Agathon was just staring at them, locked up in separate cells, not even communicating with each other. They were staring back at him, both clearly with a haunted look in their eyes, not sure if they were beyond the verge of insanity or not.

"You should know, we're going on a mission to Earth in a couple of hours," Helo said to the forms of Baltar and Gina in front of him. He noticed Gina gaze straight into his eyes, still a distant look in them.

"If there's anything left of the planet when you get there," Gina said still distant. Helo had had enough and turned around to exit the brig, a plan in his mind already.

"It doesn't matter. Once we get there, I'm going to make you pay for what you did," Helo replied, his mind racing back to the instant when the Number Six model had killed the pregnant Sharon Valerii, another Cylon, in cold blood.

**Planetary Defence Organisation – Earth**

Leoben was mentally going over the preparations one more time. He had to make sure that everything was exactly right. From the intelligence he had acquired from a download from a single Raider which had jumped into the system, the Galactica and her fleet was due to arrive in the area of Earth within the week, two weeks at the outside, depending on how fast they decided to get here. The plan was simple, and as far as he knew, Earth's law enforcement authorities hadn't found any of the devices as of yet, but then again, they weren't looking. He looked over to his associate, D'Anna Biers as she was preparing to present another news report. This time, she was interviewing key staff among the PDO's personnel about the writings that had been found about the twelve tribes of 'Kobol'.

**BBC News Bulletin**

"Good Afternoon and welcome to the BBC Space Revolution Show. Today we are at one of many offices of the Planetary Defence Organisation, and we will be talking to a number of personnel who have agreed to an interview. Today, the topic is the rumoured Twelve Tribes of mankind, which the PDO declassified information on just three days ago. Our first interview is with Dr. MacGuwyre, one of the head scientists with the PDO. Dr. MacGuwyre, it is a privilege to be here with you today, and we thank you for participating in this interview," Biers said.

"Any time D'Anna,' MacGuwyre replied.

"So, to start off. For those unfamiliar with the information which was released by your organisation three days ago, can you quickly summarise it for us?" Biers asked.

"Gladly," MacGuwyre replied. "Information was found within 'The Great Ship' that told of a planet called Kobol. On this planet, thirteen tribes of mankind existed, much like nations. A war broke out on the planet between the first twelve tribes, and the thirteenth tribe, us… For some reason, presumably the war, the planet had to be evacuated. The twelve tribes of mankind went one direction, and we went another direction and settled upon this planet. There is much controversial evidence about the timing that this thirteenth tribe supposedly arrived on Earth. Some say it was thousands of years ago, at the very beginning of human civilisation. Other evidence suggests that it may have well been as little as four hundred years ago," MacGuwyre explained. D'Anna Biers just nodded her head, already knowing the information.

"One of the rumours floating around is that these Twelve Tribes may already be on their way here, and may have hostile intentions; that they may even be the people who launched the attacks against this world?" D'Anna Biers said.

"So far, we are about sixty percent sure that the Twelve Tribes may still have hostile intentions towards us, but we are unsure whether they are the ones who launched the attacks upon us," MacGuwyre replied.

"Any statement to the rumours that you have captured an unknown ship entering the Solar System, and have captured an enemy soldier in a raid on Chicago, where the PDO denied any enemy incursion had occurred, but continued to bomb the city and lose fighters in the process?" Biers asked, cutting right down to it.

"I can only say that those are nothing more than rumours. We have been bombing Chicago to test some new weapons and as training exercises. The city was hit with approximately five nuclear warheads, and will be unlivible for the next couple of hundred years," MacGuwyre replied.

"What of the locations of these Twelve Tribes? Do we know where they are?" Biers asked him.

"From the information we have gathered, we believe that the Twelve tribes each settled around one of the stars in the constellations of our zodiac. In other words, we believe that there is one tribe inhabiting one, or more, solar systems in the stars that make up the constellations of Aquarius, Aries, Capricorn, and the other constellations of the Zodiac," MacGuwyre replied.

"Any talks of travelling to these systems and establishing contact or launching a retaliatory strike if they are responsible for the attacks against us?" D'Anna asked.

"It has been considered, but with our current technology, it would still take years to get to the closest one…" MacGuwyre replied.

****

**_Poseidon_ class Vessel – _Solaria_**

They had finally arrived at their destination, after spending days in hyperspace and Commander Galtua was glad that she had been chosen for this mission. The fleet that her ship was a member of had travelled the greatest distance from Earth in the history of mankind, and they were the first ones to arrive in another solar system which possessed planets, four of them to be exact.

"Jump completed successfully. Reading signals from all ships of the fleet. Awaiting orders from the _Soperta_," the Radar officer said out loud. Commander Galtua nodded her head in recognition and looked up to the monitors which showed images of the rest of the fleet. The _Soperta_ was Earth's second _Triton_ class Battleship, and apart from a few modifications from the original _Triton_, she was identical. The ship, as well as the rest of the ships in the fleet, possessed three hyperdrive generators, along with a separate power generator for each. Both of the _Poseidon_ class ships, as well as a number of smaller support ships that had been built for this operation had been modified to accommodate for these three hyperdrives. The three hyperdrives allowed the fleet to travel almost completely in hyperspace, with minimal time spent stopping to let the hyperdrive cool down and the power to recharge. The idea was that once the first hyperdrive began to overheat, the ship would drop out of hyperspace, and then enter hyperspace using the second hyperdrive generator, and so on. Once the third had reached it's overheating point, the first hyperdrive would be almost ready to go. This allowed the fleet to travel great distances in a much shorter time.

Their mission was to begin to explore the area in the direction of some of the constellations of the zodiac, and currently they were heading towards Capricorn. Although they were a very long way from reaching the constellation, it was a start. This was the fartherest their mission would take them this time, but Commander Galtua was sure that they would be back here and continue onwards to one of the constellations. They were also to explore the system's planets, for minerals and any chance of habitability and/or long term terraforming once the technology became available.

"Sir, _Soperta_ is requesting all ships to launch their _Falcon_ wings. It detected an unknown contact in-system when we came out of hyperspace, but it hasn't detected it again as of yet," the Communications officer said to Galtua.

"Launch _Falcon_ squadron. Expand our Radar range to maximum and start scanning with all sensors," Commander Galtua ordered.

**Colonial Ship _Adriatic_**

Riley Tuoa had finally been let out of the cell that he had been held in on Earth, only to be held in another cell. This one was much larger, and was in the shape of his ship, the _Adriatic_. The rest of the crew had been released, and they had been ordered to accompany a fleet of Earth ships as they exited the solar system. Since the Earth's mode of FTL was much different, and much more inefficient than that of the _Adriatic_, they were ordered to meet the Earth fleet at their destination. It would take the _Adriatic_ three jumps to reach their destination, while it would take approximately half a week for the Earth ships to get there, using their new FTL system. While it was their own ship, they were outnumbered by four to one by Earth's marines. This was their last jump and then they would be rendezvoused with the remainder of Earth's fleet.

"FTL in 5…4…3…2…1…," his co-pilot said. With a flash of Light, the ship disappeared from space and arrived in a solar system light years away.


	15. Chapter 15

**Authors Notes**: Grayangle, thankyou for the reviews and supporting this story.

From here on out, things will start to get a little more complicated… (to me anyway).

* * *

****

Chapter 15 

**Colonel Blackbird 'Laura'**

They had jumped into space a fair way away from the system which was said to contain Earth. From there, they took a very quick passive sensor reading of the locations of planets and moons within the solar system. From there, the Raptors had jumped to a location where they probably would not be detected if they used only passive sensors, while the Blackbird hit maximum velocity and travelled in-system.

Starbuck had outfitted the Blackbird with three imaging packages before they had launched for this mission, so she would have plenty of pictures. She also loaded the modified sensor package that Tyrol and his crew had made for the Blackbird. It wasn't until she was between the outer solar system and the inner solar system, approaching the fourth planet, that she saw anything that was interesting. On the extreme range of her DRADIS screen, as it was set to a small range, she saw movement of unknown contacts near the third planet from the sun. She drifted for a while, as more and more contacts came into view on the DRADIS screen, and she decided that she'd risk a DRADIS ping to find out what was out there. She sent out the ping, and was very surprised to see literally hundreds of objects surrounding the third planet. She waited some more, keenly watching the DRADIS screen, and was glad to see that there was no movement of ships indicating that she'd been detected. She activated the communications array of the Blackbird and sent a secure message back to the Raptors

_Hundreds of DRADIS contacts surrounding third planet from sun. Remain Undetected. Moving in for closer inspection – Starbuck._

An hour later and Starbuck could now see the bright image of the third planet as she approached it. She had seen, and taken pictures of numerous kinds of craft which were travelling to and from the planet, using the imaging package's zoom features. She examined the DRADIS screen, looking at it for the most contacts, and manoeuvred the Blackbird so she would fly by them. She had long ago shut down the engines of the craft, but to change her velocity she would need to activate them and risk being detected. She let off a couple of short bursts, and had successfully manoeuvred the craft. She shut down all internal lights and waited. Her anxiety and curiosity level peaked when she drifted past the moon, and she could see evidence of what appeared to be nuclear detonations which were separated from the numerous craters on the moon by their uniformness.

Kara was extremely disappointed when she got close enough to see that the majority of the hundreds of DRADIS contacts surrounding the planet were small satellites, which were probably for communications purposes. It made her wonder what kind of civilisation needed that much communications equipment. She did find a number of ships though, which did raise her hopes a bit.

The presence of Earth to the right of her ship, so close, was breath taking. It was only the second habitable planet they had come across since leaving Kobol almost two years ago, and the good thing was that it was relatively large compared to the average size of the Colonial Planets.

She drifted by a rather small ship, about the size of Colonial One, and was glad to see weapons emplacements dotted around the outside of the ship. She activated the imaging package and began to take pictures of the ship.

Once she had drifted past the ship, she waited until she was a fair way away and ignited the engines of the Blackbird, spun around and made an FTL jump back to a predetermined position agreed upon by herself and the two Raptor pilots.

An hour later, and they were aboard the Colonial _Nightingale_, a ship that was sent from the fleet to pick up the Raptors and Blackbird as their fuel limits wouldn't allow them to cover the distance back to the fleet.

**Three Hours Later**

**PDO Facility – Earth**

Bruce Miller was accompanied by two escorts as they showed him through the scientific facility and the progress they had made on both the captured enemy robot and the captured enemy transport. So far, it was little. They were standing in front of the enemy's transport ship as the aides explained what they had found out about it.

"The ship has an organic layer between the inner hull and the outer hull, and from what we can tell, many of the functions within the ship are actually controlled by these organic layers, even organs in some places. Also, from what we can tell, the ship seems to have either very, very good programming, or an artificial intelligence programming built right into it," the aide explained. Both of these facts caught Miller's interest. If their enemy was capable of creating specialised organs to perform certain functions, as well as create artificial intelligence, then they were truly screwed.

He was escorted around the rest of the facility and made aware of the progress on some of the research that they were currently undertaking. It was when this part of the tour was almost completed, that another man came up to him requesting that he take an urgent phone call.

Miller was escorted to an office and given access to the laptop within, as apparently the person on the other side of the phone had instructed that he have access to a laptop computer.

"Hello, Dr. Bruce Miller Speaking," he said.

"Bruce, do you have a computer?" the person said. Miller recognised it as the head of the intelligence department of the PDO.

"Yes, and I'm hooked up to the net at the moment," Miller replied.

"Good, good. Check your email. The latest one I've sent you," the Intelligence head said. Miller did just that, and he saw that there was a number of video attachments to the email. He opened the first one it and looked at a screen that showed a shot of space.

"What am I looking at here?" Miller asked into the phone.

"Watch the first video again, and look at the upper right part of the screen. There will appear to be a star, that's moving," the Intelligence officer said. Miller watched the video again and was actually surprised to see that there did look like that there was a star moving.

"Now, open the second video. We've enhanced the area as best we could," the intelligence officer said. Miller did just that, and was surprised to see the very bare outline of a ship, and unfamiliar shaped ship. "This video was taken by an _Osprey_ space craft which was surveying the surface of Europa via video to find a suitable site for the Europa base. A couple of hours after this was taken, an unknown, unidentified contact appeared in Earth Orbit, only a thousand kilometres off the bow of a _Poseidon_ class ship, and then just disappeared within seconds," the Intelligence officer said.

"I want you to double the amount of _Falcon_ and _Osprey_ patrols around the area. Also, we need to get the _Hawks_ into position and have them act as a major sensor platform for the area surrounding Earth," Dr. Miller said, referring to their newest military craft, the _Hawk_, previously the X8. Three of the X8's had been tested around the orbit of Europa, in all facets of the ships.

**The Next Day – PDO Facility – America – Weekly Conference of Leaders**

Miller and the other respective leaders of the PDO were awaiting the arrival of the representatives from the IAO before they were to begin. Miller was sitting with the other two heads of Science, but since he was considered a senior member, he had a say in all affairs of the PDO and IAO. The representatives of the IAO arrived, and they could begin.

Most of the information which was conveyed throughout the meeting was boring and unimportant, but necessary to keep both of the organisations running. There had been an estimation of the amount of ships able to be produced per month, now that major facilities had been constructed and were becoming operational. The IAO had stated that almost every major country in the world was eager to modify their fighters so that they were space-capable, and that work had begun at doing so for Great Britain, Australia, the United States, China and India two months ago. Finally, after all of the 'official and necessary' business was brought up, it was time for an open forum, so to speak.

"Are there any issues that anyone wishes to address?" One of the head members of the PDO said out loud to the room.

"I would like to know why Dr. MacGuwyre here has been spreading unproven ideas about these Twelve Colonies, such as on the BBC News report yesterday," Miller said. "Until we know more about them, we shouldn't say anything at all."

"We have writings from 'The Great Ship' that say they are hostile," MacGuwyre replied.

"And we have testimonies from a ship full of people, from these said Colonies, who say they aren't hostile," Miller replied.

"Dr. Miller. I do appreciate that you are taking a rational approach to the nature of these other humans out there, we are at war, and I think that the PDO should treat everything as hostile, until proven otherwise… I think you will find that this is the consensus of the majority here," one of the military advisers said. Miller looked around to see a large number of people nodding their heads. "You are forgetting that we were attacked first, without provocation."

"Exactly. If it was a different faction that attacked us, we should be turning to the Twelve Colonies for help," Miller replied. "The Twelve Colonies may have suffered war amongst their selves and split. If there is a faction out there who does not have hostile intentions towards us, we should be going to them for help," Miller argued.

"And how exactly do you propose we do that? We don't have the technology to cover the distance," someone argued against Miller

"A Colonial ship showed up in our system just three and a half months ago. They obviously have the technology to cover the distance. They can help us against these Cylons," Miller replied.

"You honestly believe in the idea of the Cylons? A robotic race that looks, acts, and feels completely human with no way to define them?" another voice asked.

"We've captured one of them! Obviously their foot soldiers," Miller replied.

"For all we know, that thing that we captured could be one of the Colonies' foot soldiers. It makes sense; why waste human lives if you have the technology to create intelligent machines. These human Cylons are nothing more than an excuse for the people of the Colonies to push on us… The very idea is treacherous in itself. They could make us believe that they're on our side, while their robotic armies attack us. When we're least expecting it, they turn around and join in the attack themselves," one of the military heads said. "It's a viable strategy, and at the moment, we have to protect ourselves against all avenues of attack. We can not sustain another attack of the magnitude that occurred during the opening battle."

"We can't just push everything away and stand by ourselves…" Miller started before someone out-spoke him.

"We should adjourn this meeting until later this week and let everyone settle down a bit," the person said. There were agreements from all over the room, Miller included.

On his way out, Bruce Miller was stopped by one of the IAO's representatives, another Australian man.

"I agree with what you said in there today Dr. Miller, and you have my full support," he said.

"And mine too," someone else said from behind Miller. He turned to see that a young woman was standing before him, and he recognised her as PDO's Military strategist.

"It's good to know that I'm not the only one in there," Miller replied. He bid his farewell to his two supporters before turning and heading through the facility to the air-pad. He needed to see a couple of people before the end of the week, and call in some favours.

**BBC News Bulletin**

NUMA has asked for more money from the international community as it vies for more _Manta_ classed ships to be constructed to be used in construction purposes on the ocean floor of the Pacific Ocean off of the West Coast of North and South America, as well as within the islands of South East Asia today. NUMA along with AIMS are perfecting the methodology of construction underwater and have announced that the first liveable underwater habitats are nearing completion. This request for money from the international community has raised concerns about the financial security of NUMA, as the PDO's cargo logs list fifteen _Manta_ class shuttles being transported offworld for unlisted purposes. Some claim that NUMA needs financial aid to keep it's superiority over the contract with the PDO and IAO to build these underwater habitats and not fall behind…

The home of Quin Geraldani, one of the top leaders of the 'Friendly Colonies' faction of political leaders worldwide, was bombed from the air and simultaneously fired upon by an RPG launcher earlier today. The 'Friendly Colonies' faction holds a stance saying, that from the evidence released, the Twelve Colonies of the Zodiac are most likely friendly. Geraldani had discovered evidence that an unarmed Zodiac Colonial ship had entered the system months ago requesting aid and was captured by PDO forces, a _Poseidon _Commander being killed in the process. According to his information, members of the ship were tortured and treated inhumanly, breaking rules set out by the Geneva Convention. His aid today came out and said that Geraldani had plans to release certifiable information that these prisoners have been made to operate their ship for the PDO's purposes under the threat that some of the crew that has been left behind here on Earth will be killed if they try to escape or act in any way that is deemed 'unnecessary' for Prisoners of War. According to Geraldani and other 'Friendly Colonies' faction members, interrogations of the Zodiac prisoners revealed that they believed their enemy was the one that attacked us, and that a refugee fleet of the last members of their civilization is on it's way to Earth seeking aid. Leading Members of the Planetary Defence Organisation have replied to these facts saying that they are unfounded and not based in any truth what-so-ever. Other leaders of the 'Friendly Colonies' faction are calling for an independent investigation into Geraldani's death, outside the IAO's authority as they fear that PDO leaders will influence the investigation.

**Four Hours Later**

**BBC New Report**

Shocking accusations were released by the 'Friendly Colonies' faction just moments ago, slamming the French and Swedish governments as evidence found by the 'Friendly Colonies' faction suggests that the assassination of Quinn Geraldani was a cooperative, sanctioned mission by both governments. The French and Swedish governments have denied the fact, and the IAO and PDO have both claimed to have no knowledge of any plots to kill Geraldani. The Turkish government is raising it's own investigation to the assassination as it happened on Turkish soil….

… A man was captured in Greece today after an attempt to destroy the temple of Apollo Epicurius. The man was clearly in a confused and dazed state as police escorted him off the property and into custody for questioning Shot of man being dragged to a police car, the entire time saying that 'it is Gods will that the signs of the Lords of Kobol be destroyed."

**Battlestar Galactica**

Lt. 'Helo' Agathon had stepped off of the Raptor and been greeted by everyone, eager to know what Earth looked like, and if there were any signs that it could help them and offer them shelter. Of course, he just replied that he couldn't answer the questions as Adama had stated that all matters retaining to the mission he had just undertaken were classified to the highest degree until the Commander deemed otherwise.

A day later and he was lying in his bed, thinking about the events that had taken place over the mission. They had actually found it, Earth, their salvation. He should be happy, but yet he wasn't. He had been hoping that the discovery of Earth would somehow change the gaping hole that he felt inside him; that his life could somewhat resume after these two years of chaos and he would be able to move on. So far, it wasn't happening. Apart from a gaping hole that he felt that he had inside him, he had a feeling that something was going to go drastically wrong. Already, three ships' FTL drives had malfunctioned as they had prepared to jump and everyone was screaming 'Cylon sabotage'. They were finally in reach of Earth, but weren't getting there just yet. He knew that something was going to happen once they reached Earth, something terrible.

The worst thing was that he was conflicted over, was an issue in itself: Sharon. He had made love to a machine, a very human like, loving, machine, and he had fathered a child, with a machine. Helo had to wonder whether it was so wrong to love a machine. If he had never heard of the Cylons, he would have loved her as if she were human, without doubt. But she was a Cylon, a machine. Even though her body was organic, from what their current level of understanding of science could tell, somewhere in there was circuitry and processors. She had not been born, she had been made, her and hundreds more, exactly like her. Someone 'out there' could decide to make her do something, could instigate a hidden program within her brain, and make her perform certain actions without her consent or knowledge. The worst thing of it all was that she was the enemy. Her race had wiped out billions of people, and they were planning on doing something to them; to their fleet, but he didn't know what. He knew that the Cylons had literally herded them here, had probably planned their every move; like gods, planning our existence.

Helo didn't know whether it was right to miss her or not. He knew that he did miss her, but was it right to miss a machine? Did it make him less of a person to be missing a machine who wanted everyone he knew dead? His mind automatically went back to that day when Gina, another Cylon model had killed Sharon upon seeing her. A couple of weeks after they had rendezvoused with the _Pegasus_, Admiral Cain wanted to put the two Cylon prisoners together to see how they interacted. The room was obviously bugged, to learn any information that they may confess to each other. As soon as Gina had seen the pregnant Sharon Valerii, she had grabbed a weapon from the nearest marine guarding her, aimed it at Sharon and fired before turning and shooting Cain in the head and heart. She was going to turn the weapon onto herself, but was stopped by another one of the guards before she could do so.

None of it made any sense at all. From what he had seen, and Starbuck had witnessed first hand, the Cylons wanted to reproduce with humans, but then, once one of them was pregnant, she was killed by one of her own kind. The Cylons want to exterminate the human race, but for two years they have herded the remaining population of the Colonies towards Earth when they could have killed all in one large attack against the fleet. Helo was sure that the Cylons could have also nuked Earth from orbit in a large attack if they wanted to, but Earth still stood. He had seen it for himself. He was just starting to begin to think that if the Cylons did have plans, they were far beyond his comprehension. It was then that the thought hit him; what if they didn't have plans? What if they weren't a unified force? What if all the confusion was caused by different factions trying to act out their own separate plans? It was a nice little fantasy that he could delude himself in for the next couple of hours or so.

**

* * *

**

**Authors Notes: **Temple of Apollo Epicurius is a real place in Greece… ya just gotta love that Google Earth don't ya…

Things are starting to unwind in the perfect little Earth we have here. Could make some things very interesting… especially when a fleet of unknown ships rock up claiming that they're the 'Colonial Fleet'.


	16. Chapter 16

**Authors Notes**:

I made a bit of a blunder last chapter, that's why it's taken so long to write this one; figuring out how to fix it. More Authors Notes at the bottom of the chapter

**Reply to reviews:**

Grayangle: The spots along the way to Earth were just systems with high amounts of resources – the stops that the Cylons did along the way if you will. They'll be important later on in the story

Tweeky: I'm getting to that. It'll be happening in a much, much different way than what's expected, I think.

Thanks for the reviews everyone.

**Chapter 16**

**Colonial Battlestar Galactica**

Admiral Adama was looking up at the DRADIS screen at the single enemy contact that had appeared near the fleet only moments ago. The CAP had been dispatched to investigate the target, but the size of it suggested that it was a Raider.

"Sir, receiving a signal from the contact," Dee, the communications officer said to him. "Video and Audio only," she added.

"Very well. Lets see it," Adama said to Dee. Moments later, an image appeared on the screen she had designated for viewing the video. Adama looked up at the screen, only to see static. Soon, it was replaced by what appeared to be an aerial view of a large city. The camera slowly panned across the city. Adama walked closer to the monitor as he viewed the video, and he sensed that Colonel Tigh did the same.

"My Gods," Tigh said as he was almost right in front of the monitor.

"What Colony is that from?" Adama heard someone ask.

"It's not from the Colonies," Adama replied. The image of the city stayed on the monitor for another few minutes before cutting away to an image of a woman standing on the ground, in what appeared to be the city from the shot earlier. Adama was stunned that he recognised her.

"To the Colonial Fleet. I am a number seven model Cylon Agent, D'Anna Biers, and I am here standing in a city called _New York_, on the Thirteenth Colony. We know that you are approaching the thirteenth tribe…," The image of D'Anna Biers said on the video. "Any attempts by any ship in the Colonial Fleet to contact Earth will cause the detonation of forty nuclear devices which are scattered around the planet in cities such as this, and will result in a significant Cylon attack against both your forces and the forces of Earth…" she said before the video cut out for good. Adama stood there stunned for only a moment before he turned to Lieutenant Gaeta,

"Gaeta. Assemble the marines and begin searching the fleet for D'Anna Biers," he ordered.

**PDO Facility – Unknown Location**

He had been held captive here ever since the Colonial _Adriatic_ had been 'captured' by members of the Thirteenth Colony after one of their officers had been shot by the Cylon on board. He had heard that the rest of the crew had been let out of their cells, and were now piloting the _Adriatic_ under the 'advisement' of Earth's military; but yet, he was still stuck in here, in his cell. He still received daily beatings from marines under the command of MacGuwyre, and it was only in the last couple of weeks that he had come to know MacGuwyre's name. There was another major player that came to see him every now and then, Miller, but he was still bombarded with questions about his origins and intentions of his people.

He heard a sound and looked up to see a very small package shoved through the slit in the door to his cell, and he recognised it as his meal for today. He slowly got up off of the floor so that he was crawling on his hands and knees towards the food, but halfway there the muscles in his wrist gave out and excruciating pain was sent through his arm. He held his upper body above the floor with his other arm and made his way over to the food box. He opened the package to find a small container of what was called 'Mashed Potato', and he had two 'carrot' sticks. Every week, when he refused to divulge information his rations would decrease. He used to get a full meal when he first got here, mostly composed of a white meat which tasted a lot like a daggit, but that had stopped too soon.

There was one person out there, in the facility that was looking after him. He recognised him as a Leoben model. He had had a few quick encounters with him, and he was assured that things were being done to get him out of the cell, and that the main attack force of Cylon vessels was on it's way from the overrun Colonies. He couldn't wait until that day came, and he would finally be able to inflict some revenge onto the peoples of the thirteenth tribe.

**One Day Later – PDO Air-Base – Turkey**

It was risky business, but Simon knew that it had to be done. It had been decided because of recent developments in Earth's political structure, that changes to the Cylon plan had to be made. This copy of Simon was a technician for the engines on the _Falcon_ and _Albatross_ craft which came and went from the Airbase. His job today was to attend to the Australian _Falcon_ and the American _Albatross _wings that had landed. These two wings were to escort Turkish officials to France for official talks regarding the assassination of Quinn Geraldini, a leading member of the "Friendly Colonies" movement on Earth. The two fighter wings were being used to escort the Turkish officials as an official show of power by the IAO, to remind the French and Swedish governments that there was now a much more active international governing body on Earth. That was the official story released to the press anyway, in reality, Simon suspected that the PDO's stance on the "Friendly Colonies" political movement was much the same as the French and Swedish Governments.

He approached the first _Falcon_, climbed the ladder next to the cockpit and opened it. He looked at the name plate which was attached to the controls, and it read _Henry O'Connell_.

"_Poor bastard which has to fly this,"_ Simon thought as he unscrewed the front panels covering the main computer systems of the fighter. He then reached into his backpack and retrieved an Earth created network cord and connected the computers up. He then reached into his backpack and grabbed a modified Cylon device, and plugged it into the back of one of the computers. He closed the cockpit and climbed down the ladder and started moving onto the next craft.

**BBC News Report**

Simultaneous bombings occurred today in Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Spain and Thailand, each bombing targeted at leaders of the 'Friendly Colonies' faction of political leaders world wide. The 'Friendly Colonies' faction is calling on the International Affairs Organisation to act and start to root out these terrorists. The IAO has stated that they will start using all of their resources to try and track down those responsible for these attacks.

Fingers are being pointed towards the French and Swedish Governments, but both have come out and officially denied the claims. It is known that the attack in Thailand was carried out using two F-22 Raptor aircraft. Speculation has claimed that a terrorist cell is operating against the 'Friendly Colonies' faction, but it has been stated today that no known terrorist organisation possesses military aircraft, however the German, Argentinean, Brazilian, Spanish, Thai and Turkish governments have raised their military alert level, as well as a number of other countries in which members of the "Friendly Colonies" faction are said to reside.

**PDO Airbase – Centre of Australia**

Flying Officer Steven McDonaldson looked out of the cockpit of the A8-001, formerly designated X8 aircraft, the Artillery/Bomber aircraft that had been developed by the PDO. This was the first actual flight of the operational aircraft beyond prototype stage. McDonaldson looked along the specially built runway in one of the Airbases of the PDO. There was absolutely _nothing_ around them for hundreds of kilometres, so they could do what they wanted. He turned his head to check that the rest of the crew was strapped down and ready for take off. Behind him to the right was the sensors and communications officers, sitting facing their consoles which were on the right side of the craft. Behind him to his left sat the navigation and weapons officers, facing their consoles on the left side of the craft. He looked above him to the screen showing the crew compartment directly behind the craft, and he was glad to see that the five crew were strapped into their chairs, although there was a room for a couple squads of marines if needs be. The rest of the craft was mainly cargo space, for cargo, ships, and ammunition for the craft.

He gave a nod to his communications officer, and turned back around to look out the front cockpit of the aircraft. He could see from his console that the wings were situated behind the aircraft, and he pushed the lever up to rotate the wings out from behind the aircraft. The aircraft itself was forty-five metres in length, twelve metres wide, and had a thirty-four metre wingspan, when the wings were rotated out. Simply put, the _Hawke_ craft was a little shorter than, and a little wider than, a Boeing 737 aircraft, and a hell of a lot heavier. He rotated the wheel situated beside his seat to rotate the twin rotateable engines, as situated on an _Osprey_ aircraft, so that the exhaust was pointing downwards. The design had been made so that when the engines were vertical, the intake would be just behind the wings, if they were rotated outwards. The power of the _Osprey_ engines wouldn't be enough to get them off the ground, or to let the aircraft hover, but it would help it get off the ground and slow it's descent when landing in an atmosphere.

McDonaldson heard his communications officer relay the communication that they were cleared for takeoff. He put the flaps down on the aircraft and started to rev up the two large engines which took up most of the rear of the craft. He also began to rev up the four smaller engines which were situated on the sides of each engine housing, jutting out of the back of the craft. When the rumbling of the engines was reverberating around the whole ship, he disengaged the brakes and the _Hawk_ ship began to roll along the extra-long runway. He engaged the _Osprey_ engines watched as the craft accelerated. They were very quickly approaching the end of the runway, but the craft wasn't about to get off the ground.

"Come on, lift, lift," McDonaldson said to himself. It was just the moment when he began to believe that the craft wouldn't lift off the ground, when he felt the nose come up. He then felt the air hit the wings, and lift the craft off of the ground just before the end of the runway. "Mick, tell the rest of the wing that they'll need to push it to take off," McDonaldson said to the communications officer. Steve hit the lever to put the wheels up and he pointed the nose of the craft upwards into the sky.

Not even half an hour later, and the blue sky was disappearing to be replaced by blackness as they exited the upper atmosphere of the Earth and entered space. That would be the last time his _Hawk_ craft would be in an atmosphere for a very long time. There was a total of thirty _Hawks_ launching today, and none of them would return to Earth unless it was absolutely necessary, as it was too much effort for the giant craft to exit the atmosphere. Instead, each of the aircraft would serve as a mobile defence and sensor satellite orbiting the Earth, getting re-supplied from _Osprey_ craft, as there was a hatch on the top of the craft which allowed _Ospreys_ to dock with them. Some craft would also be going to the asteroid belt, to assist in mining operations, as their very large guns could be used to blast apart asteroids, instead of having to waste a missile each time, the large shells could be used. As far as Henderson knew, each of the craft were also carrying a defence satellite which they were to place in orbit before moving off to their designated missions. There were only a select few craft, Henderson's included, which weren't doing any of the previous missions. They were heading to Europa, the ice covered moon of Jupiter, where they had just discovered months before, contained an underground ocean that encompassed the entire planet, and in their cargo hold were two _Manta_ class underwater vessels developed by NUMA, and a hell of a lot of construction equipment.

Steven McDonaldson asked the Navigation officer if the jump to Europa was calculated, and after receiving an affirmative, he hit the lever to rotate the wings so that they were now behind the craft, and he engaged the hyperdrive. The jump to Europa was about the limits of the hyperdrive that was onboard the _Hawk _craft, but they had been told that scientists from the PDO were very close to discovering a new technology which would allow them to jump to the next star system, almost instantaneously.

Once they exited Hyperspace an hour later, McDonaldson was surprised to see the amount of activity occurring before his eyes. He had been briefed about the project, but he didn't think it would be going along this quickly. There were two _Poseidon_ class ships in orbit around the moon, with what looked like dozens of _Osprey_ craft buzzing around both near the surface and the pair of ships. He looked down to the moon, and he could see the tiny set of lights which indicated the small base which had just been completed on the surface, insignificant when compared to what they had planned beneath the surface in the Icy Ocean of the moon.

**Viper CAP - Colonial Fleet **

Lee Adama sat in the cockpit staring at the DRADIS screen, the blank DRADIS screen. He had been flying CAP for three hours now, and he had three hours to go. The repetitiveness of his activities was slowly smothering his will to live. All he did was fly CAP, shoot Cylons, sleep, eat, and repeat. It never got any different. He was sick of living in space, always in fear of attack, always fleeing the Cylons. Now, they were just two jumps from Earth, and they couldn't proceed because the Cylons would decimate a large number of cities around the planet with nuclear weapons which were supposedly planted in them. Sure, there was a great variation in the ways he flew his Viper and killed Cylons, sometimes almost being killed by the Cylons himself, but in the end, it was just the same thing.

He had been very, very, sceptical about the whole idea of Earth, and the lost thirteenth colony. Eventually, over time, it had become a kind of goal for him – to reach Earth. Once there, they could finally rest, or have some of the responsibility for protecting the fleet taken off of them. He was sure that they'd need to work to build up a fleet capable of protecting them from the Cylons, if Earth didn't have one itself. He knew that he'd probably still have to fly Vipers and protect the _Galactica_, but he would at least get to set foot on a planet, have a home outside his rack that he shared with others, maybe even find a nice Earth girl and settle down. He had began to view Earth as their salvation – once they got there, everything would become easier. He now knew that that wasn't the case; that it was never the case. They couldn't reach Earth because of the Cylons. The thought occurred to Lee that a lot of people onboard the_ Galactica_ as well as people within the fleet were probably going through the same things as him right now. At the beginning, everyone was sceptical of Roslin's faith in the scriptures and Earth, but it had turned out she was right. He had seen the planet with his own eyes, albeit, from very far away onboard the Raptor on their one, and only scouting mission to the planet.

It was then that an idea formed in Lee Adama's mind. They didn't have to just sit here and wait for the Cylons' next move. They could do something about it. He wasn't sure if his father or President Keikeya would approve of the idea, but they had to give it a shot. It may take them years to complete it, but, once they did, they'd finally be able to make a stand.

**Authors Notes: **Well, my blunder was – the Galactica wasn't meant to get this close to Earth till much later. Too many things have to happen on Earth first. So, well, I came up with a method to fix that.

It might be a while till next update. I'll try to make it tomorrow however. I have many many 'pieces' (things that need to happen) on Earth, but I gotta find out how to put em together, and in the right order. And, even then, I don't know if these 'pieces' will make the right 'picture' (if we're using a jigsaw analogy). Hope you enjoyed, and leave plenty of reviews.


	17. Chapter 17 Catalyst

**Author's Notes: **I've sorted out the details for the next couple of chapters, and things are going full steam ahead. Expect another update tomorrow!

Thanks for the reviews everyone.

Also, a continuity error has popped up in this story (that i can tell of anyway), for those of you who care. A couple of chapter ago, i wrote that the Galactica and fleet got suprised by Cylon Raiders sneaking up on them, and that Kara was in the blackbird and couldn't do anything except turn around and trynot to be noticed. Now, because of (SPOILERS FOR GALACTICA 2x11 and 2x12) _said episodes, where the Blackbird has the ability to jump, this coudl have been avoided. And later, in keepingg with the show, i have the blackbird jumping to Earth here_... so, contunity error. I don't really care, it's there, it serves a point, it's not changing.

* * *

**Chapter 17 – Catalyst **

**One Day Later**

Flight Lieutenant Samuel Johnson sat in the cockpit of his new _Osprey_ class ship, with his new crew, and diplomats from Turkey who were on a mission to Paris, France, to discuss the recent assassination of Quinn Geraldini, a leading member of the 'Friendly Colonies' Faction of political leaders world wide. The PDO had decided to 'intervene' in the dealings, and had provided escort for the Turkish officials, and thus they supplied Turkey with an _Osprey_ class shuttle and a _Falcon_ squadron for escort.

They were half an hour out from French airspace when Johnson found himself staring out of the front window of the _Osprey_ aircraft, his mind drifting back to the events that had landed him in the _Triton's_ brig, facing charges of treason. He couldn't get _her_ image out of his head, the image of Sharon Valerii; his weapons officer aboard the _Osprey_. She had been one of the 'them', one of the enemy; Cylon or a Zodacian (Colonial), it didn't really matter. She had been working for the enemy right from under their noses, and she'd killed Captain Organ, the navigation officer, and had set him up to take the blame for it.

What he couldn't get over was that there was another one out there which looked exactly like her. It had been the television broadcast of the captured enemy soldier, which looked exactly like Sharon Valerii, which had sprung her. If it wasn't for that broadcast, he'd probably still have her and Captain Organ as his crew, onboard their old _Osprey_. Instead, he was training two rookies, fresh out of an accelerated training program that the PDO had set-up. Some good it did too, they barely knew jack from shit.

Once he had revealed the presence of a hidden enemy base on the far side of the moon, he had been released from the _Triton's _brig and given a full official apology, and an attractive pay rise. He hadn't been promoted in rank, because he didn't want it. He didn't want to be a Squadron Leader, he didn't think he had what it took to be responsible for the lives of an entire squadron. They had reinstated him as an _Osprey _pilot, and had given him three and a half months off; this was his first mission back from vacation.

"We're approaching French airspace. French F-35 Joint Strike Fighters on approach for escort to Paris," the sensor/navigation officer said to Johnson. He looked down at the small, basic Radar screen that he had in front of him and saw the fighters on approach.

**Red _Falcon_ Flight Wing**

Flying Officer Henry O'Connell was the leader of Red Wing, and today they had been put on the most backwards and boring mission that the PDO could muster up; escort duty. They were escorting an _Osprey_ class shuttle which had Turkish diplomats within it to Paris for talks about the recent assassination of Quinn Geraldini. It would be a simple and relatively easy mission, he could have the fighter on auto-pilot for the majority of the trip, but it was boring. They weren't even leaving the atmosphere; not that every mission they undertook needed them in orbit, or beyond, but it still did thrill him to know that he could easily leave the Earth in a craft a little bigger than an average fighter plane. He looked out of the front of his cockpit and he could see Paris on the horizon; they were almost there. He needed to get out of the cockpit and stretch his legs a little. At the speed they were travelling, they were at the airport in no time at all. He had ordered his wing to begin landing before him, as the _Osprey_ craft landed on the Heli-pad. He circled the airport, looking down at the military facilities that it possessed. He was surprised to find, from what he could see, that the PDO's facilities in Paris were less than what had been at the Turkish airbase from where they had come from. As his fighter circled, he was looking down at some _Albatross_ bombers, which he could just make out from the height he was flying. It was then that all hell broke loose.

"Red Leader, this is Red Five, I'm on final approach to the tarmac and I've lost all control of my aircraft. I've got no control, weapons, thrust, navigation, anything, only my radio. The fight computer is saying that there's an active data uplink to Red Seven, over," Henry heard over the radio.

"Red Leader; Red Seven. Confirmed active data uplink. I am beginning to lose control of my fighter, over," he heard Red Seven say.

"Red Leader, Red Leader, this is Red Four. I've lost control of my aircraft. It's like it's controlling itself. I'm climbing," Red Four said frantically.

"Red Leader. Red Two. I have no such malfunctions with my craft, as of yet, over. Confirmed that Red Four, Five, and Seven are flying erratically, over," Red Two said. O'Connell and Samantha Jones were the only two surviving members from the original Red Wing, which fought in the opening battle with the Zoadiacians.

"Red Leader. Red Five. My fighter is climbing and turning away from the airport. I can not regain control, over," Red Five said.

"Red Squadron, close down all non-essential computer functions. Fly manually, and climb into a safe altitude for those who can, over," O'Connell replied. "What the hell is going on," he said to himself.

"Red Leader. _Osprey 084_. What the hell is going on?" he heard the communications officer say from the _Osprey_ containing the Turkish officials.

"_Osprey 084_, Red Leader. Some of my wing has lost control of their aircraft and they seem to be piloting themselves, cause unknown, over," O'Connell replied.

"Red Leader, this is Red Four. My fighter is targeting the French F-35s. I can not disable the weapons or veer off course, over," he heard over the radio. He pulled back on his stick and rolled the craft around so he could see the majority of his wing. He looked down to the radar screen and located Red Four, according to their IFF signature. He looked out of the cockpit, and in the distance he could see a craft flying almost vertically upwards, followed by another.

"This is Alpha Leader to Red Leader. What is going on, your fighters are targeting mine and flying very aggressively, over," he heard over the radio. He was about to reply when all the power drained out of his ship, shutting down the engines, radar screen, and all of his control.

"What the hell," he said to himself. "Alpha Leader, Red Leader. We have lost control of our ships due to unknown reasons, and they appear to be flying themselves, over," he said. He just heard a string of words that he couldn't understand, guessing that they were in French. Moments later, power returned to his craft and he could hear and feel the engines ignighting again. He grabbed the stick and pulled back on it, to get himself out of the nosedive that his ship had started to take, but nothing happened. "Red Leader to Red Squadron, I have lost control of my ship, over." He fought with the controls, but the_ Falcon_ wouldn't do anything. He was racing towards the ground, when suddenly the fighter pulled up and veered off, the G-Forces almost crushing him in his seat.

"Oh my God, my ship's firing at the French," he heard a voice say over the radio. He saw a flash out of the corner of his vision and quickly turned his head to see the picture of a French F-35 blowing up in a ball of fire, rail-gun rounds streaking past it. A light suddenly started flashing on his dashboard, and he could see that it meant that there was a missile lock on. Moments later, the rear sensors in the craft alerted him that a missile had been fired towards his craft, and he was guessing that it was an F-35. He had lost track of the radio communications ages ago, words being shouted both ways, in a couple of different languages.

"Red Leader to French F-35s. Break off and try to make a run for it. I repeat, break off and make a run for it. We do not have control of our fighters. We do not have control of our fighters, over," O'Connell said into the radio. There was a reply, but it wasn't understandable. Suddenly, he jerked forward in his harnessing as the fighter rapidly decelerated and banked right, avoiding the missile. His _Falcon_ was almost at stalling point, and he watched as the missile overshot the craft. His nose automatically came up, and ammunition started pouring out of the twin-rail guns on his craft, destroying the missile eventually.

All of the French F-35's had been destroyed, and any other aircraft they had tried to launch had been shredded to pieces with rail-gun rounds before they could get off the ground. His entire wing of eight fighters had effectively taken out more than thirty aircraft. The ships had piloted themselves, denying control to their pilots. The flying style was unique, like nothing he had ever seen before. There were tactics that the _Falcon_ fighters had used, which he had never dreamed of; basically because there had never been a fighter capable of such things until now. A number of ground facilities had been attacked and sprayed with rail-gun rounds, which had probably travelled right through the facilities.

They were now cruising at five-thousand metres, and O'Connell was starting to panic. He had already tried the eject lever, but nothing had happened. He wasn't in control of his fighter, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had never had such a feeling of helplessness in his entire life time.

His onboard computer beeped at him, and he looked down to the radar screen to see seven more contacts approaching them. It was then that his craft was rocked and he was frightened out of his mind as a loud bang occurred next to his fighter. He looked to where the sound had originated, and could see a small cloud of black smoke dissipating. Another bang rocked his ship again, and immediately it started to climb upwards, and O'Connell realised that they were being fired upon by anti-aircraft guns. He was thrust backwards in his seat as the large engine on the back of the craft kicked in, and he realised that they were going to head into orbit.

He watched the radar display as they raced higher and higher into the atmosphere, and he could see a large number of contacts in orbit, most of them satellites. He had a hard time discriminating the satellites out, but he could see that there was at least two _Falcon_ wings heading straight towards them.

"Red Leader, this is Orange Leader. Safely exit the atmosphere and stand down. Repeat, safely exit the atmosphere and stand down," he heard over the Radio. He winced as there was no response from the craft. He could see that the sky in front of him was turning darker and darker, and soon enough, they were in orbit.

"Red Leader. _Triton_ command. Stand down, or we will be forced to take action, repeat, stand down or we will be forced to take action," the voice said over the radio. Henry looked down at his radar screen and could see that the _Triton_ was waiting for them only a couple of thousand kilometres away, and that more fighters were launching from it.

"Red Leader. Red Eight. My fighter's computer systems have shut down…." He heard over the radio. "My velocity is decreasing and I am drifting back down to Earth. Trying to manually reboot the computers, over," Red Eight said. Moments went by until O'Connell heard from Red eight again; "Red Leader. I now have control of the craft, repeat, I now have control of the _Falcon_. Powering up engines and proceeding to an escape velocity, over," Red Eight said.

"Red Leader, Red Three. I now have control of my craft, over," Red Three said. It was then that Henry's craft completely shut down. He tried to manually reboot the computers, as Red Eight had done. The computer systems came back online, and Henry managed to regain control of the aircraft. Right in time to be head to head with two other _Falcon_ aircraft, and a _Tiger_ stealth fighter.

**Poseidon Class Ship _Solaris_ – Sol. System**

Commander Galtua was sitting in the briefing room looking over the reports of their last mission to the closest star system in the direction of the constellation of Capricorn. A number of times they had seen an unidentified contact on their radar systems, but it was only moments before it disappeared again. They had guessed that it was either a piece of space debris, which was only being picked up by radar once it had an adequate profile, or that it was an enemy contact which was trying to hide from them. Either way, the contact didn't bother them and neither did they. Well, they had tried anyway; the _Falcon_ wings had been dispatched and had tried to trace the contact down, but had failed. Apart from that, nothing else too exciting had occurred on the mission, except being able to witness the _Adriatic's _FTL drive in action. The Earth people aboard the ship had said that, as far as they could tell, the trip had been instantaneous. What had taken the _Soperta, Solaria_ and _Chu-Jung_ days to travel, the Zoadician_ Adriatic_ had done within seconds.

Apart from iron, methane and hydrogen sulphide, the only resident planet in the system didn't possess any valuable resources from what they could tell, and there was no conceivable way to terraform the planet; that they could see yet. They were hoping for a planet like Mars, another planet on which the theories of terraforming could be tested on, but they had travelled to the system in vain.

Commander Galtua heard a knock on her door and invited the person in. She looked up to see Dr. Bruce Miller of the PDO and personal friend at the door.

"Come in, come in. I knew that you were coming to see me, I just thought that it wouldn't be so soon," Galtua said.

"Thankyou for seeing me anyway. I'm afraid I'm here more on business than pleasure," Miller replied. Galtua motioned for him to have a seat, and then she moved around behind her desk and took her seat.

"How are you holding up since the funeral?" Galtua could hear herself asking, referring to the funeral of Ivan Wotresser, who was killed upon the research vessel _Copenhagen_. Wotresser was Miller's nephew, and had been a close friend to Galtua herself.

"I'm alright. I didn't know him too well, you know? Amanda's a wreck, after losing her husband, and then her son only a couple of years later," Miller replied. The pair sat there in silence, Miller remembering the last time she had seen Amanda Wotresser, and Galtua imagining how she must have been holding up.

"You said you were here on business?" Galtua probed after a few long moments. She watched as Bruce cleared his throat had looked at her.

"I need a favour. A very big favour, which could get you in a lot of trouble," Miller said straightly to her across the desk.

"What do you need of me?" Galtua asked him.

"Things aren't looking too good at the PDO and IAO right now and their stance towards these people of the Twelve Tribes. They're convinced that it was them that attacked us, but I have clear evidence that shows that it was another race. I have accounts from every member aboard the _Adriatic_, who all cleared a polygraph test, that it was not them who attacked us, but rather their enemy," Miller started. Galtua just sat there and listened, waiting to hear where this was going. "I need you to look out for the people aboard that ship Heidi," Miller said. "And any other ships like theirs that you stumble across. I need you to prevent them from being destroyed… unless they fire the first shot of course," Miller explained. Galtua could feel herself nodding her head slowly.

"Why?" she said after a few moments.

"Because they're not the same people who attacked us. They're a different race. They're enemies of our attackers…" he started. "They obviously are more technologically advanced than us, just look at the _Adriatic's_ hyperdrive system. There's no way in the world that we'd be able to create that, or even reverse engineer one. We've looked at it, and we don't know what we're doing," he said. There were a couple of moments pause before he continued. "Most of all, if we attack them without knowing who they are, and they would be a potential ally, then we've started a war with two space-faring races, and we can't survive that," Miller said.

"It's done," Galtua replied.

****

****

**_Triton_ class ship _Triton_ – Earth Orbit. **

She tried to look over the heads of the people in front of her, as they were all crammed in the hangar bay trying to see what had happened. All that anyone knew was that the order had come out for the _Triton's_ Falcons to escort a wing of hostile _Falcon_ fighters aboard which were attempting to leave Earth's atmosphere. That's what most people knew, but she knew better. Those _Falcons_ had just attacked Paris's airport under remote control, and the authorities were pissed. She had just received an upload minutes ago, informing her of her new mission and objectives once the fighters were aboard. Number Six pushed her way through the thin crowd until she was face to face with a marine who was holding everyone away from the craft once the airlock had been closed. She held up her toolkit and said that she was one of the techies, and he let her through. Luckily for her, she was positioned aboard the _Triton_ as a techie and it wasn't actually a lie. She was told to wait by another marine as the pilots were handcuffed and taken out of the hangar bay.

She walked up to the first _Falcon_ fighter and climbed into the cockpit. She reached under the front and felt around on the back of one of the Earth's computers until she found the plug that she was looking for. She then followed it up to the device, the cylon device, which had all of the _Falcon's_ computer systems networked through it and had been planted by a number eleven model, Simon Walker in turkey. It had been plain luck that the _Falcon_ fighters had landed in the _Triton_, or any other airbase where a Cylon agent was posted, there were only a select few around the planet, but they had backup plans just in case that the rogue _Falcon_ wing had been escorted somewhere else. The events which took place today were meant to be the beginning of a chain reaction of tests, of which the result would determine the fate of humanity. They had started the chain reaction themselves, today's actions by the Cylons were only to act as a catalyst to speed up the process. Nita Davidson put the device into her toolbox, got out of the cockpit and moved onto the next _Falcon_.

* * *

**Authors Notes: **If you're wondering where Dr. Wotresser and The _Pegasus, Rycon and Cerebus_ are, don't worry, they'll pop up sooner or later. Also, no 'Galactica' part in this chapter… honestly I forgot and haven't been able to think of a bit to do about it. Each chapter from here until Galactica meet earth is meant to have a little 'monologue', or at least, delve deep into the thoughts of one of the crew members of Galactica (ie, the bit with Helo 2 chapters or so ago, and then with Apollo), after all, it is a character driven show. 


End file.
